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'N 















SILVER RIFTS 


POEMS 


BY 

/ 

WiLiliIRM HEflHV NEALiOH 

a 



fSzssq 

.Eis 6 . 


43766 


Copyrighted by the Author. 

•ECONO COPY, - 



r \V^yx - A - * « 







PREFACE. 


The title of this volume at first sight may appear 
pretentious, even a suspicion may be aroused that the 
author yielded to egotism in selecting one of the pre¬ 
cious metals as a figure for his title, to cover weak 
contents. 

However, after perusing a few of these verses, I 
trust the reader will readily understand that the title 
refers to the optimism of this work alone, and that 
the cumbersomeness of the real title (Silver Rifts in the 
Sky of Life) make its use not desirable. 

Please do not understand that all the contents of 
this volume are gilded with the bright side of life, for 
that would be erroneous. Many of the verses in this 
volume are built upon conceptions of human suffer¬ 
ing, the passions that draw the metal of the soul; yet 
the grimness of despair never predominates, hope never 
disappears, but gradually forges its “Silver Rifts in the 
Sky of Life.” 


THE AUTHOR. 


DEDICATION. 


Great passions know no barriers. When I think of 
the many, many devoted friends whose tireless efforts 
made this volume possible, at a time when that grim 
shadow of the grave, disease, made effective action on 
my part impossible, I simply feel such a volume of 
human love encircling and o’erwhelming me, my 
verses, my life work disappears, and in its place stands 
the visible monument iof human love, beyond itemiza¬ 
tion. Individual dedication seems impossible, and I 
can only say to all who have aided me in pushing aside 
the dark clouds in my sky of life; who have followed 
my humble thoughts as they marked each “Silver Rift,” 
the word dedicate seems cold, for you seem already 
with me, a part of this book, my sky of “Silver Rifts.” 

THE AUTHOR. 


Sop^s of tl?e U/est 


THE CORN FIELDS OF THE WEST 

I. 

The sweet grape’s purple cluster 
Dots the vine-clad hills of Spain, 

The lemon’s yellow lustre 
Tints the islands, off the main, 

But there’s nothing has a fairer sheen, 
By nature richer drest, 

Than waving fields of gold and green, 
The cornfields of the West. 

II. 

There’s beauty in the golden crown 
Of the orange-laden tree, 

A slender grace to berries brown 
That cluster down the lea, 

There’s nothing makes a prouder stand 
Than the tasseled flowing crest, 

A rich plumed army o’er the land, 

Our corn fields of the West. 

III. 

There’s the royal palm of Asia 
And the spices of Brazil, 

And Persia’s rich Ambrosia 
Her rooms with perfume fill, 

But there’s nothing of the sickly scent 
In the fodder or the crest, 

There’s a kind of Ceres’ incense 
In our corn fields of the West. 



TO 


SILVER RIFTS. 


IV. 

There are ships that bear the cargoes 
Of the sunny southern climes, 

And on trade brooks no embargoes 
On the northern land of pines, 

There’s no place on the boundless main 
Be it midnight, noon or morn, 

But you will find a cargo plain 
Of our yellow western corn. 

There’s nothing has a fairer sheen 
By nature richer drest, 

Than/ the waiving fields of gold and green— 
Our corn fields of the West. 


A FAR WESTERN HOME. 

There’s a little rustic valley 
Near the mountains of the West— 

You can see the white ships sailing 
On Pacific’s surging breast; 

And a little cozy cabin, 

Nestling close to forests green, 

Where the fir trees point to heaven— 
Like fingers, long and lean; 

But the sight that sweetest gladdens 
Are the curls of golden brown, 

Of the children that are playing 
On the dooryard’s emerald down. 

Pretty, little, cheerful babies, 

In your far-off Western world, 

With the mountains for a background, 
’Fore the sea, ’gainst white cliffs churled, 
Could there be a fairer picture 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


II 


Than the mountains and the sea, 
And the fir-trees trooping outward 
Where the river laughs in glee? 
Little babes ’mid sylvan shadows, 
You may roam in later days, 

But you’ll find no fairer picture 
Than your Western sea-girt ways. 


THE GREAT NORTHWEST. 

Drink a bumper to the seaside 
And the forests of old Maine; 

Sing praises of the Southland’s pride— 
Snowy cotton, plumaged cane; 

But the cup that I will pour you— 

Drink it deep, at my behest. 

If a thril of joy come o’er you, 

Filling you with mirth and jest, 

’Tis the way that things go brewing, 
Smile and laughter always strewing, 
Hand to hand and breast to breast, 
Through our free and bold Northwest. 

Amber from our tinted clay-banks, 
Yellow from our prairie grains, 

Mixed with red gleamed from our sunsets, 
Nectar from our air-crisp plains. 

If you think me rather verbose, 

Why, ’tis just our Western way 
To reach out the hand of welcome— 
King to king in kingly sway. 

That’s the way that things go brewing, 
Smiles and laughter always strewing, 
Hand to hand and breast to breast, 
Through our free and bold Northwest. 



12 


SILVER RIFTS. 


UNDER OUR WESTERN SKIES. 

Under the many smiling skies 

That graced your view, ’mid roaming’s vast. 

Traveller will you poetize, 

The land where beauty fairest lies 

With blended colors richest cast? 

Under what smiling skies? 

Grandly the Alpine summits rise, 

With rocky crag and glazier sleek; 

But fairer far, neath Western skies, 

Shasta and Rainier bold comprise 

Mightier form and loftier peak 
Under your Western skies. 

Italy’s skies are blue" and fair, 

Italy’s hills with vines are clad; 

But far out West can ought compare, 

With California’s dreamy air 

Where vineyard songs ring sweet and glad. 
Under your Western skies? 

Norway hath forests fair to see 

And Erin’s hills and vales are green; 

But grand near Puget’s inland sea 
Forests of greater majesty. 

Taper and wind and skyward lean 
Under your Western skies. 

The verdant hills with sylvan crest 

Are bedded round the scenic Rhine; 

But from old Mississippi’s breast 
Expands more rustic loveliness 

Of deeper hue and richer prime, 

Under your Western skies. 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


There’s sameness to old Europe’s scenes, 
A want of hues that’s rich and bold, 
A need of Bad Lands wild terrene 
To enhance, its constant greens 
Like the reds and browns and gold 
Under your Western skies. 

Under your smiling Western skies, 
Some o i the tints of paradise 
Are moulded in a quaint cut way, 
Whether it be in verdant vales 
Or in the wild red stretch of clay, 

Still nature’s richest mix up lies 
Under your smiling Western skies. 


THE BAD LANDS. 

Gray hills and brown, and banks of crusted clay, 
Curling and rent, unbending, stretch away. 
Deep-riven canyons wind, where hush and gloom 
Bespeak the soundless language of the tomb. 

Death must have gathered here his carnage spoils- 
Long, long ago, when nomads fought their broils. 

A legion’s blood hath dyed this hillside red; 

Yon pallid rock grew ashen, like the dead; 

And gaping canyon yawns, like open grave, 

Where sad the moaning wind doth cry a*id rave. 
Medusa’s breath hath swept this arid zone, 

And turned the pulseless arena to stone; 

Or baked the reeking earth, till crusted clay 
And wastes eternal hold their barren swsiy. 



14 


SILVER RIFTS. 


SNOQUALMIE FALLS. 

Here ever-falling waters roar their wild applause 
To temple walls and colonnades of shaded grey; 

And tinted rainbows circle round the misty spray 
In holy benediction to vast Nature’s laws. 

Here fir trees stand as sentries ’round the sacred fount, 
And chant eternal hymns im soft devotion. 

The circling hills, like rich-robed high-priests recount 
Their love to forests singing adoration. 

And yon, .high mountains raise their chain of rugged 
peaks, 

In eager rapture for the sun’s first kiss 

To melt the bedded snows and yield, in silver streaks, 

The floods that lap Sno'qualmie’s restless precipice. 

Grand concert by Pacific’s fir-lined shore, 

Rings vast thy constant hymn as falling waters roar, 
Beat glad the grateful hearts of men that upwards soar 
With Nature’s hosannas to their godly source. 


THE SKYKOMISH RIVER. 

O crystal rolling river 

That flows at the mountain’s base! 
O voice of the past and forever 
That sings in thy rapid pace! 

AVhat songs are thy rapids singing? 

What whispers thy eddies sound? 
What message thy ripples bringing— 
Onward and seaward bound? 



SON^S OF THE WEST. 


15 


“I sing of snows on mountains tall, 
That melt in noonday’s sun; 

I sinig of the tumbling waterfall— 

I embrace it as I run. 

‘‘I sing the air that is beaten 
On strings of a forest lyre; 

I sing and I whisper a greeting 
At base of a mountain spire. 

“I sing as I kiss the boulder 
That adornsi my path along; 

I sing, and I grow no older 
For the efforts of my song. 

“I sing through the great forever, 
Working, I sing along; 

And the voice I am singing 

Is a note to the human throng. 

“I sing as I grasp the sunbeams— 
Sparkling they flutter and rest; 

The glittering golden day-gleams 
Rest brightly upon my breast 

“Down in the rocky passes 

Where sunbeams never shine, 

I sing the changeless symphony— 

The sweet-tuned song of time.” 

O voice of the rolling river 

That flows at the mountain’s base! 

O voice of the past and forever 
That sings in thy rapid pace! 

I grasp the song thou art singing— 
Take lightly life’s many cares; 

I will take up the load time is bringing* 
And march to the river airs. 


i6 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE PIONEER’S CHRISTMAS. 

Over the rolling prairies that stretch in the distant 
West, 

December winds are playing with the snowdrift’s crusted 
crest. 

The cabins lie full miles apart—the country being new— 

’Twould seem that Father Santa Claus must miss a 
house or two. 

No bells had chimed the midnight hour; the sadly 
tolling wind 

Moans deep among the sage brush, a sad and dismal 
trend; 

Yet little hearts are beating in these cabins in the 
West, 

And dreaming of Santa claus, each in his little nest. 

Each with a dear little wish, for Santa Claus to fulfill, 

With fanciful childish joys that Christmas does instill. 

Humble the little gift may be, for toys are scarce out 
West; 

If only a gaudy jumping jack, each child thinks his 
toy best. 

Thus dear old Father Santa Claus scatters his Christ¬ 
mas joys 

Into the stockings, on the tree, for little girls and boys. 

Age seems no barrier io him, gifts are the old man’s 
play— 

Each is a boy or girl to-day, though hair be streaked 
with gray. 

I care not if the city bells are ringing in your ear, 

And city shops are laden with the sparkling toys tp 
cheer, 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


17 


Or if the winds be blowing o’er the prairies of the 
West, 

’Tis Bethlehem and the Christ-child, ’tis love makes 
Christmas blest. 


A DREAM AMID THE LILIES. 

There are bluffs that hem a valley, where the Missis¬ 
sippi glides, 

And the sweetest scenes of chilhood are entwined 
around their sides. 

There’s a little rambling cottage, nestling deep amid 
the green, 

At the door and up the hillside, flowers cluster in their 
sheen. 

Never was a fairy garden, decked with flowers of richer 
hue, 

And we knew each sweet enclosure, where the choicest 
of them grew. 

There were crocuses in April and the royal month of 
May 

Brought a host of tinted flowers, scattered fragrant o’er 
our way 

Honeysuckle .,and» purple violet and the dainty shoot¬ 
ing 1 star, v 

And the cowslips in the lowland, scattered yellow near 
and far. 

In the Junetime, sweet pond-lilies clustered near the 
river shore, 

And I think I loved them dearest, pale pond-lilies 
white and pure. 

Of’t I rowed across the river, to a dear secluded spot, 



i8 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Where a host of sweet pond-lilies, clustered like for- 
getmenots; 

One I loved was oftime with me and I told her of 
my love, 

With the lilies all about her, gazing at the skies above. 

Handing me a sweet pond-lily, “This is like my love 
for you.” 

White and gold, I kissed the lily and the hand that 
held it too. 

’Twas a dream amid the lilies and then down the rip¬ 
pling stream, 

Hand in hand, we glided smoothly, still adream with 
love’s sweet dream. 

Oft’ I picture hills about us, though we live upon the 
plain, 

Where the bunch grass and the sage-brush are the only 
growth we claim. 

Still my heart it keeps a dreaming, of where Missis¬ 
sippi glides, 

And the hills where scenes of childhood, lie entwined 
about their sides. 


rHE EVERGREEN AND WINTER. 

Summer, golden, royal summer, 

Reared her garlands o’er the earth; 
Kissed the flowered into blossom, 
Filled the feathered throats with mirth 

Warmed the green fruit into ripeness, 
Filled the grape with nectar sweet, 
Till the vines and trees were laden 
With the mellow, lucious treat. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


19 


Man surveyed the tempting harvest, 
Garnered it and claimed his own; 

Summer missed the buoyant fragrance; 
Weeping, she had sadder grown. 

Weary Summer lost all gladness, 

Bowed her head and gloomy slept; 
Winter, wily, cruel Winter, 

Slyly to the portals crept. 

Sent abroad his faithful agents, 

Nipping frost and biting breeze, 

Killed the leaves and sapped the verdure, 
Stripping bare the vines and trees. 

Then the conqueror, the Winter, 

Spread a shroud o’er Summer’s tomb, 
Drear and bare and cold, forbidding, 
Asked, “Where now is Summer’s bloom?” 

Cast his eyes o’er earth’s cold mantle, 
Lashed the winds to harsher wail, 

And a murmer softly answered, 

“Here, o’er Winter’s blighted trail!” 

“Here among my hardy branches 
Decked by Summer’s royal will, 

All thy biting, windful prances, 

Cannot my rich verdure kill.” 

Then the Winter winds snarled louder, 
And' the snows came flaking down; 

And the biting frost cracked harder, 
Spreading o’er a burnished gown. 

But the Evergreen stood stately, 

Rocked and slapped by winds and snow; 
Still, from out the bonds of Snow King, 
Spread green arms to Winter’s blow. 


20 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


THE SAGE-BRUSH LAND. 

There’s a land where colors countless 
Merge in banks of crusted clay; 

Hills, like rainbows, in the distance; 
'Canyons, winding far away. 

And the sage-brush climbs and clusters 
’Mid the blending colors gay, 
Where the coyote leaps away, 

And the prairie-dogs do play. 

It may be a little barren, 

But, I fancy, long ago,— 

When the wealth of precious metals 
Were deposited below,— 

That the fairies planted sage-brush, 

Like divining-rod to grow, 

So that ev’ry one should know 
Countless treasures lie below. 


THE EASTER LILY. 

From out the stalk of green they climb, 
Flowers of the joyous Easter time, 

Whose waxen petals, tongues of gold, 
Remind us of the story old. 

White as the virgin life of Christ, 

The fragrant petals pure unfold, 

As emblems of the words He spoke, 
Shoot forth, the fragrant tongues of gold. 
Upreared, the shaft with triple head 
Teaches the tale for which He bled, 

How pricelessness of purity 
Unfolds around the Trinity. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


21 


THE RAINY SEASON. 

I can hear the rain drops patter, 

In their rapid broken chatter, 

Pelting music on the roof above my head. 
Seeks my thoughts the soothing matter 
As in hazy dreams I tatter, 

Every earthly care that I could dread. 

As I half wake dream iru pleasure, 

Raise the lazy smoky azure, 

Of embers in the fire-place burning red, 
While the raindrops beat their measure, 
Flits before the joys I treasure, 

I grasp and hug the phantom as it said. 

“Let the raindrops gently patter, 

In their rapid, broken chatter, 

On the shingled roof above your head; 

Grasp youri thoughts the soothing matter, 
As in hazy dreams you tatter, 

Every earthly care that you could dread.” 


MISS SNOW-BIRD’S PARTY. 

There’s a flapping of wings on the tree-tops bare, 
Where a few dead leaves still cling; 

As most cheerily out in crisp, cold air, 

Pretty snow-birds chatter and sing. 

White the door-yard is spread with glittering snows, 
Where the print of tiny feet 
Like a fairy’s wee letters the zigzag rows 
Stretch out to the beaten street. 



22 


SILVER RIFTS. 


There’s a fluttering of wings on uppermost limb 
And a rufflng of tufts of brown; 

Miss Snow-bird is making her toilet prim, 
Smartly shaking her robe of brown, 

And then she contentedly, swift flies away 
Where a host of snow-birds vie, 

In their chattering, merry, winsome way, 

At the party on elm-boughs nigh. 


CLIFF DWELLERS. 

The swallows have carved, in the cliffs by the sea, 
A city of homes in the great white walls; 

And waves may roll high and winds beat free, 

The swallows may visit from stall to stall— 

On a rainy day ’tis pleasant to see 

The swallows making their neighborly calls. 

When the sun sits high in its firmament home, 

The swallow soars to the sky of blue; 

How graceful, majestic, his dizzy roam! 

I think he there gets an idea or two; 

For straightway he seeks the cliff’s white dome, 

To busily there the idea pursue. 

When the morning sun' bright the mountains seal, 
The swallow has left his snug white houses, 

And, eagerly hunting a morning meal, 

He works with a will for the cause he espouses. 

He good-naturedly eats whate’er he can find, 

Then soars to the heavens with thanksgiving in¬ 
clined. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


23 


And I’m sure if we mortals would only learn 
A lesson from swallows that dwell in cliffs, 
We would find this life not by half so stern. 

We should lay aside our bothersome ifs 
And seek, like the swallow, the shimmering ray 
Where tihe sun sits high in the dome of day. 


MOUNT TACOMA. 

High Sentinel! Eternal virgin bride of time, 

That raise thy lily oriflamme, unstained by years, 

So close to azure skies, we see the blue white prime 
Of heaven’s outer mists. Thy peak the proud compeer 
Of earth’s blue tinted dome. Sharing the same soft kiss 
Of clouds that ever float like phantom ships through 
space. 

Eternal Sentinel! Vestal virgin watch whose lamp, 

Is lit to speed yon setting sun or greet the birth of day, 
Did God raise high thy changeless, princely head and 
stamp 

Thy massive form with marble white to thus convey 
To struggling man, the contrast of their traitor lives, 
The oriflamme of virtue close to heaven thrives. 


THE WORLD’S WAY. 

The world will look at the deed when ’tis done, 
The world will think of the man who did it; 
The world will talk and ’twill frown, or shun, 

Or smile at the act should we do it. 

Oh, the stern, gray world 
With its busy tread— 




24 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Oh, the great, gay world, 

When we are dead 

Will frown and smile as the millions pass. 

When his race is run, each man, alas, 

Will sigh, “ ’Twer better had I but frowned 
On some of the deeds the great world crowned.’ 
For the stern, gray world 
With its busy tread 
Is the great, gay world 
When we are dead. 


SPEECH OF FREEDOM, 

OR 

MARCUS VALAKIUS’ APPEAL TO HIS ROMAN SOLDIERY 
BEFORE THE LAST BATTLE WITH TARQUIN 
AND HIS ALLY OCTAVIUS MAMILIUS. 

Shall ye be Romans, or shall ye be slaves? 

Servile cowards, that shiver at peril, or 
Shrink at the shadow of a fear. 

Is the narrow space called the present, so sweet, 

Ye would hug the Tarquins clanking chains, 

And call the fetters light, though they chaff and furrow; 
Brand ye ith a master’s mark—if perchance 
The furrows deepen, the chains must be enlarged to fit. 
Hugged we once the delusion, but now— 

For years, we watched Rome’s children grow and wax 
strong 

Only to bear the load we grunted under; 

A legacy made doubly heavy by inaction. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


25 


High- above yon shaggy rocks the eagle soars 
In the changing grace of her free flight 
Yet every crevice of those crags that bear 
Her nested young is marked by her watchful eye 
Eager to scent may be a lurking foe. 

Is our prattling babes less dear to us than 
The eagle’s callow brood, 

Slaves—love ye well the name? progenitors 
Of a race of slaves. Suits you well the title? 

In Tarquin’s reign, some cautioned us be patient; 

Yet time was scoring decades, on the round dial 
And every hour, was born a slave. 

Patience!—Bah!—fit motto for those who lean 
Upon the polished marble portals, to wait 
The exit of a king;—autocrat who 
Sways the scorpions that lash fair Liberty’s 
Prostrate form. Not I— 

I wonld sooner flaunt 

Defiance from the gibbet, that would hurl 

My soul, a freeman, into the vast unknown 

Than live a pampered minion at an autocrat’s caprice. 

Oh Liberty! fair garland for heroes scarred brow. 
The scars that come in battle; not the chaffing 
Brands that mark and furrow the patient slave. 
Patience—talk not to us of patience! 

How short since last we heard the cant of groaning 
slaves? 

Talk not to us of patience! did we not 
See the children shake their golden locks, and 
Spell their masters’ task in docile obedience? 

Did we not see their fathers rise in fair 

Liberty’s name and shake the stolid earth 

With the rumble of trampling feet and clashing arms? 

The vast huzzah that alone makes tyrants tremble. 


26 


SILVER RIFTS. 


We fear mot this thing they call death. 

Could we live within its chambers, harken 
To its daily horrors and hug chains of slaves. 

Death! there is mot death for freemen! demise, 

Is but double life. When ages hear the echoes 
Of your actions, the thud of falling chains 
A race of freemen perpetuated; 

Heralded through the centuries and launched as 
Live lightning at the midnight hour. 

There is no death for heroes. Tis groveling slaves 
That die in dungeons where darkness swallows 
The last sob of broken hearts. Death was it 
That Romans sought under the Tar quin’s lash, 

When they hurled their wretched bodies in the Tiber 
To escape the tyrant’s tasks. On! Romans; on!— 
Strike in Jupiter’s name the blow that 
Hurls the monster tyrants Tarquin and Mammillius 
into oblivion. (They battle, roar and din of 
armed conflict, Valerius leading the Romans cn. 
Romans fall back at charge of Tarquin and his 
Roman exiles.) Valerius— 

Jupiter, turn thy face from such cowardice; 

Do Romans prefer Tarqin to death? 

Castor and Pollux belch forth thy meteoric wrath, 
Flame from the just heavens, the edict 
Of the gods upon this Tarquin’s head. 

Launch earthward thy heavenly legions 
Upon these dual tyrants, and 
By this tried steel, (lifts sword) 

I do solemnly swear to rear a temple proud 
On Rome’s most gracious hill to thy august pleasures 
Where altar fires shall flame thy glories through cen¬ 
turies. 

’Tis done! Powerful gods have spoken. (Romans 
forcing allies back.) 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


2 7 


On, Romans! On! In the saintly Lucretia’s name; 
In noble Brutus’ memory, on! 

They fly! they fly! Mammilius and Tarquin fly! 
Castor and Pollox, twin steeded messengers of Jupiter, 
Rome is saved. 


LAND OF THE NORTH—MINNESOTA. 

Proud mother of great waters. Itasca’s home, 

From out thy nursing, hilled and prair'ied breast, 

Gush crystal springs like eager birds from nest 
To far away in sunny Southland roam. 

Thy lakes like mirrors gleaming in the sun 
With emerald hills are linked and seamed and spun; 
Pale pearls around a princess’ heart entwined 
And chained to running rivers silver lined. 

Here waves the golden fields of restless grain, 

Like billows on a sun kissed, tropic main, 

And lifts like angel arms the daily bread, 

To murmur lowly “Man, be fed, be fed.” 

How troops the needle points far, far away, 

Their Northward course to the Hudson Bay, 

Or drift the waters to a far off mill, 

Which will saw them; in boards, man’s wants to fill. 

Here ope’s the softest zephyrs in the sky, 

To blow the sweetest cassia scents full nigh, 

On prairie, hill and lily laden lake, 

God’s sweetest essence here can all partake. 



28 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Where snowy banners virgin are unfurled, 

Opal encrusted and peaked and pearled 
And dancing about in the noonday sun, 

A flirting and flickering ev’ry one. 

Here mother nature paints her richest hues, 

And pearls the morn with purest, crystal dews 
I fain would live ’mid Minnesota’s rambling hills, 
Where laughing waters murmur tales that thrill. 


SAILING ON PUGET SOUND. 

Sailing the rolling billows, white with feath’ry foam, 
Crysolite, the playful deep o’er its vast bounds roam, 
Rocked by the motion of the fickle waves at play, 
Bathed in the balmy sunshine of a perfect day, 
Onward our fleet bark sails, 

Past the fir-decked vales. 

White our wings are, spread to the breeze’s willful blow, 
Sparkles the water’s breast with myriad gems aglow, 
Mountains, crowned with white and a wreath of rosy 
light, 

Bathed in gray the base and with dusky shades of night, 
Points to the azure dome, 

Where the cloud ships roam. 

Just where the glistening white peaks gleam most high. 
Beyond the crystal path where the sea gulls fly, 
Leaden and fleecy clouds with a silver tinge, 

Border the horizon with a restless fringe, 

As o’er the ripples’ foam, 

Our white-winged bark sails home. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


29 


CHA-DRON. 

I found a time-worn arrow-head 
On the wold, above the town, 

The flinbed missle slowly lead 
My thoughts, the past adown; 

The red man in his lusty hunt 
With savage whoop and rant, 

Or, maddened at the battle’s front 
Here lived intolerant. 

Wild scenes, as wild and bold as he, 
The bad lands to the north, 

Spread canon and aridity 
And when he sallied forth 
For rummage, in his thirsty hate 
He knew the canyon’s clay, 

Like locked and ever-frowning gate 
Would bar, the retribution fray. 

Twas but a hardy memento 
Of past forever gone. 

I gazed upon the city 
With steeples sleek and lone 
Where progress hives its temples 
And industry vaunts its sway 
And the smoke of busy engines, 
Curling merge in heaven’s gray. 
Treeless once those rolling plains 
Reared a host of flaming flowers, 
Now the birds sing stoeet refrains 
From a city’s verdant bowers, 

And instead of red men’s prances, 
Fearlessness o>f hunt and mad-run 
Hardy in, its thriftiness, 

Beats the throbbing pulse of Chadron 


30 


SILVER RIFTS. 


WINONA ON THE WESTERN NILE. 

When first Dame Magic northward sailed on Missis¬ 
sippi’s breast, 

Dropped she a shimmering pearl upon this pebble 
woven crest; 

The magnet that drew from nature’s cheerful bounteous 
store 

The vast array of verdure here on the river shore. 

Where once the sands lay hot and drear, baked ’neath 
a flaming sun, 

To-day great trees their canopy of deepest green hath 
spun; 

A forest city lies, hooded o’er with drooping bowers, 

That shelter lawns of emerald and hues of flaming 
flowers. 

Around this gem tall bluffs rear pyramids of stone, 

As guardians are placed around some favored zone, 

And at their feet a mirror bright, Winona’s placid 
lake— 

I fancy this the brilliant pearl that lay in Magic’s wake. 

One mass of stone rears high, the Sphinx of the West¬ 
ern Nile; 

Mt Sugar Loaf of stone, Winona’s long enduring pile, 

Looks down with brazen face the Indian Pharaoh’s 
land to scan, 

Where once lay storied tombs of chief and medicine 
■man. 

How flushed with inspiration, his brave heart must have 
been, 

The pale faced explorer who first laid eager eyes upon 

The condensed, varied beauties of nature’s lavish brush, 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


31 


The flaming tints, the purple hues, the season’s change¬ 
ful flush. 

To have but marked the emerald growth amid these 
rambling hills, 

To have but heard the laughter of these valley winding 
rills, 

Was to have grasped the infantile of nature’s sweetest 
song, 

Ere came full flushed for conquest this busy pale faced 
throng. 

Here men have built as Nature did, with plans so nobly 
wide 

That space alone has checked their scope from lake to 
riverside. 

Yet Nature has outdone them in her foliaged array, 

And shadowed o’er their buildings with the bower’s 
rich display. 

Shoreward the queenly river veers, the pebbled strand 
to kiss, 

Then glides in rippled ecstacy, made buoyant from 
the bliss, 

As frolicking she southward rolls, bearing her cargoed 
freight 

Proud past the other marts of trade to the ocean’s 
southern gate. 

I sing not of ancient Egypt and her storied winding 
Nile, 

Nor deceitful Cleopatra and her king subduing smile; 

But of queenly Mississippi and hills that crown her 
nigh, 

And the princess true Wenonah—can false Egypt these 
outvie? 


32 


SILVER RIFTS. 


No canting slaves surround us here, no Khedeves, no 
Pharoah’s will; 

There swells a freeman’s chorus from each Minnesota 
hill. 

No arts of blackest magic ’neath our pyramids of stone. 

As landmarks Nature built them, trees to rear and 
flowers enthrone. 

The fragrant Summer reaps her flowers, with tinted 
beauty rife, 

And Autumn paints a grandeur flaming in colored 
strife. 

The Winter coats with marble our Minnesota hills 

And Springtime melts to laughter our valley winding 
rills. 


FORT CRAWFORD’S RUINS. 

[Fort Crawford, which is now an impressive ruin, 
is situated in the outskirts of Prairie du Chien, Wis. 
Grant and Jeff Davis sent part of their early military 
careers here. It was once the scene of great military 
activity, being the seat of the Black Hawk war. It 
might properly be called the cradle of civilization for 
three States—Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota—as it 
was the rendezvous from which the Indian was sub¬ 
jugated and settlement made possible.] v 

Gray, ruined walls, on which decay has chiseled long 
The scoring ravages of time, whims of a passing throng, 
Thy finger stern points patient to hist’ry’s potent page, 
Whereon is writ the strife tales of red men’s brutal rage. 

How marred thy face; no ivies twine ’round to shield 
thy scars; 

No blazoned stones to tell thy throbbing hopes and 


wars. 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


33 


Alone amid the ghosts of thy removed surroundings 

Man envies thee this space with memories redounding. 

Thy foeman Utility is pressing on the wreck 

That gave him life and vigor to build and fleck 

This valley land with faces pale and forms of highest 
life, 

Where once was heard the rumblings of the clashing 
Black Hawk strife. 

This little space which progress doth envy overmuch 

Has reared religion’s noble cross, which o’er it towers 
to touch 

The heart with signs of peace. Oh, willful man, with¬ 
hold thy hand; 

This is the empty hall of death, where roams that 
Suliot band, 

Whose mortal lives were laid to rest, anear these white 
grim walls. 

Whose crumbling tombs still speak of services beyond 
recall. 

Here lies beneath the shadows deep of Crawford’s white 
decay, 

The age-stained sepulchres of those wiho paved for 
thee the way. 

Pause thoughtful here and reverent in silence bow the 
head. 

Back! back! full threescore years the mind must wan¬ 
der with the dead. 

See you the dusty bluster at base of yonder hill? 

Hear you the fierce war whoop where red man’s rant 
is shrill? 

List you the whizzing passage as poisoned arrows fly? 

The deaf’mng bomb, so mocking where bullets tear 
and cry? 


34 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Hark! To soulful, plaintive prayers from babes arid 
mothers’ tonigue, 

The sweet-strained supplication 1 unto the Godhead sung. 

The years have told their story on walls that’s mute 
and gray, 

Arid from the past’s fierce pulsings methinks I hear 
them say: 

“These walls are mute; they cannot speak the pulsings 
of the past, 

They seek for room to whisper of the fusillade’s hot 

blast. 

Spare Crawford’s storied ruins, oh mailed and heavy 
arm; 

Let coming peoples tell the tale and point with feelings 
warm 

To patriotism respect. Lived they, oh, not in vain, 

But built for thee the level of Freedom’s present plain. 


MY MEADOW HOME. 

It was here ran childhood’s happiest days, 

When my lamp of life was full and trim, 

Here I trod these now altered meadowy ways 
As I gathered the hours of those sweet days in, 
Now alas, like years that have fled as a day, 

The sweet scenes of childhood have passed away. 

Where my cottage stood with its guards of corn, 
Where the climbing vines wreathed a garland o’er, 
There is only a wreck strewn space forlorn 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


35 


Amid the hollow form, that the cellar bore. 

Through my vine-clad door of the long ago, 

Now the railroad engines pass to and fro. 

Where of yore I mapped with a childish plan, 

My play houses galore, with their stick staked halls, 
Now the shops’ tall smoke stacks rear proudly to scan, 
The sad ghost of my humble cottage walls. 

Soars the curling smoke, like the drifting snow. 
Where my bubbles were blown, long, long ago. 

And this meadow where lilies and cow-slips grew. 
Has been trampled down, by the city cows, 

And the prairies, where crocuses yearly blew 
Are now dotted oer with houses in rows, 

And I wonder where in the Springtime hours, 

The city boys will gather their flowers. 

And the willows that leaned o’er the argent stream, 
All aflutter with leaves near the water’s breast, 

Now are gone and the lifeless stubbles dream 
Of the bowers, the song and the robins’ snug nests, 
And I wonder if baskets from willows thus made 
Will hold half the eggs those branches did braid. 

The stream has grown smaller from tears that it shed, 
In the channel a sand bar rears its head. 

All the scenes I loved so dear as a child 

Have been harnessed by man and since they were wild, 

Have slipped off their garments and joyful threw, 

A coat to the hillside, a stocking or two; 

And the garments some richer, in verdure more deep, 
Have learned up the hillside and valley to creep, 

And there they have grown to be brilliant in sheen, 
For far up the hillside lies the old sweet scene. 

All the scenes of childhood have not died away, 

Like myself they have gone with others to play. 


3$ 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


CHILDREN AND THE GROWING CORN. 

From my cottage near the street, 

I can watch trade’s ebb and flow, 
Listening to the pattering feet, 

As the thousands come and go; 

And my heart seems sorely shorn, 

And my brain reels from the clatter 
E’en the sparrows’ noiisy chatter, 

Jars upon this mellow morn. 

Then a tender, homelike feeling, 

Leads me out among the grainy 
Where the warm south wind comes stealing, 
Lisping soft a sweet refrain 
To the fragrant, timid morn; 

And someway, I fall to dreaming, 

Of the fields, with tassels streaming, 
Childhood’s fields, of plumaged corn. 

Scene, on scene, is cast before me, 

Voices that long since were stilled. 
What a flood of thought comes o’er me? 

Dreams, ambitions, unfulfilled, 

Hopes that now seem all forlorn, 

Meadows green and hillside flowers, 
Lowing cattle, blast of horn, 

All those happy, childhood hours, 
Centered ’round the growing corn. 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


37 


THE SNOW STORM. 

Millions they come the falling snow, 

Fast rushing atoms how soon they sew 
Over the earth a robe of white. 

Each leafless limb is made a bower 
Fair as an apple tree in flower; 

So fair and pure e’re yet the night 
Of snarling winds rush too and fro 
And tear, and beat, the beautiful snow. 

Millions they come earth’s passing throng 
Time like the winds will push along 
And toss each life, like a flakeof snow, 
’Till soiled and bruised and buried deep, 
To rest in peace to dream and sleep; 

’Till gentle zephyrs warmer blow 
And melt into the lap of Spring, 

Each tired and time worn earthly thing— 
Snow flakes to flowers and man to God, 
Merge from the lash of Winter’s rod. 


MOONLIGHT ON THE MISSISSIPPI. 

The boat veers out from the city, the dotted house clad 
shore, 

And up the stream we graceful glide, where ripples 
dance before; 

And in the glowing Western sky the sun sinks crimson 
down, 

Scattering o’er the hill tops, the rays of his lustrous 


crown. 



38 


SILVER RIFTS. 


And o’er the city buildings, with myriad window panes, 

Is cast the mica flash, the sheen of, the day King’s train; 

Then gathers o’er the busy world, the hues of impend¬ 
ing night, 

And shades o-f darkness deepen to crush each lingering 
light. 

In the dusk that now is leaning against night’s shroud¬ 
ed dome, 

Flicker the starry eyes, from the breast of their bound¬ 
less home. 

Against the leaden bosom, earth’s battlements are 
raised, 

The hills that black and rugged lay, where last the 
sunset blazed. 

They seem to rise, expectant, in the hope that the 
coming moon 

Will cast in benediction, the light of its argent boon; 

And now above the tree tops, that cluster about the 
shore, 

Is seen the herald haloes, that ride the moon afore, 

Lo! O’er the slender fingers, that reach above the hill, 

Is seen the first fair candant flush of night’s rich ruby 
ball, 

And through the scattered bowers that reach above the 
land, 

Peeps full, the royal circle of nights bright soverign 
grand. 

Across the flowing waters, a shimmering robe of light, 

Is cast li'ke calcium rays, on the darkened stage of 
night. 

The flames lie on the waters, and true to their hate 
of years 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


39 


A battle royal there is waged, while the moon rides 
o’er its spheres. 

Along the shore like sentinels, flash lights among the 
trees, 

The scent of bowers and creeping vines lay heavy on 
the breeze. 

Ahead, a piercing eye of fire, searches the waters’ 
breast, 

The shifting glances cast about, a raft boat proves her 
quest. 


And slowly past our eager eyes, with its floating for¬ 
ests pride, 

The toiling raft boat tugs and puffs, its mighty load to 
guide. 

A village nestles over there, most buried amid the 
bowers, 

Where a tall mill stack is weaving a wreath of waxen 
flowers. 

A hill looks proudly from above and down near the 
sandy shore, 

The willows creep and elm trees rise and climb the hill¬ 
side o’er. 

To right, to left, I watch the walls, outlined against 
the sky, 

The sloping bluffs, the rugged peaks, that friendly seem 
to vie, 

In sheltering the flowing stream, that nestles at their 
feet 

And cast their picture to the moon in one vast wind¬ 
ing sheet; 


40 


SILVER RIFTS. 




And music sweet is swelling, from the band aboard 
the boat, 

And o’er the burnished waters breast, sweet harmonies 
do float. 

A child now won with soothing, I sink in ecstatic rest 

And dream of the cradling waters and their gem be¬ 
spangled crest. 


THE SUGAR LOAF. 

High above the chain of hill-tops, 
Spire of nature, mound of pride, 
Stately—deep thy rock ribbed side, 
Bold is reared thy princely cone, 
Rock crowned, massive and alone. 

Argent lay about thy base 
Lake Winona’s modest grace, 

Mirror for the eventide; 

Stately shadows silent ride, 

Thy image pompous and thy pride. 

Slender rushes graceful wave, 

Master’s tribute from his slave; 
Willows dip their verdant bowers, 



SONGS OF THE WEST. 


41 


Hosts of tinted nodding flowers 
Grace thy sides in Summer hours. 

******** 

Where red men told their legends in the past, 

And fished the rippling waters at thy feet, 

Is heard the din and bustle and thy blast 
Of energy, where trade and commerce meet 
And hive their lessons in the homes of men. 

Thy base the gateway the busy tread, 

As peasants drive their produce to and fro, 

The useful pass through which is yearly fed 
The tide of life, that hence must ever flow 
Beneath thy stately, salient destiny. 

And ’round thee men must pause and silent learn 
Thy message of the immutable form, 

Which ever points a potent finger, stern 
To heaven, in fairest calm and wildest storm. 

Is taught to fleeting life the import deep 
Of faith, devotion to a sacred cause, 

That is ntot fettered by false, fickle laws, 

But leaps unconquered to the height aspired, 

And trails the way with light of purpose fired 
Each life a mountain in the map of time, 

A useful landmark to this favored clime, 

A rythm in the song of progress rhyme. 


42 


SILVER RIFTS. 


MINNEHAHA. 

A silver blade of sparkling gems, 

A canopy of drooping limbs, 

A string of pearls the sunbeam skims 
The breast of Minnehaha. 

A spray of mist, a gurgling sound, 

A rainbow circling half around, 

A spurting fount with snlow drifts crowned, 
The feet of Minnehaha. 

Two walls of rock Dame Nature’s brush 
Has painted with a regal flush 
And capped with vine and tree and bush, 
The sides of Minnehaha. 

A rush of dancing snow white balls 
Shoot from the surging fount of the falls 
Kissing the feet of the tinted walls, 

The path of Minnehaha. 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


43 


ON THE PRAIRIE AND THE PLAIN. 

The darkies glad are singing 
In the cotton field and cane, 

The Southern breezes flinging 
Out the merry sweet refrain; 

But there’s nothing half so mellow 
As the murmur of the grain 
When the fields are waving yellow 
On the prairie and the plain. 

There’s a dirge among the mountains 

When the wind moves ’mong the pines; 
There a sigh comes from the fountain 
Though the sun most brilliant shines; 

But the rain may beat and patter 
On the yellow of the grain, 

There’s a soothing in its chatter 
On the prairie and the plain. 

When the morning sunbeams glimmei 
And the dew is on the grain, 

There’s a flutter, flash and shimmer 
From the dew drops all aflame, 

And a murmur soft and mellow 
From the tassel and the crest, 

Where the fields are waving yelow. 

On the prairies of the West. 


44 


SILVER RIFTS. 


MOONLIGHT ON LAKE WASHINGTON. 

I. 

The moon gleams on the ripples 
Of the hill-crowned placid lake, 

The fleecy clouds are fleeting 

In the pale beams’ silv’ry wake. 

II. 

See there upon the hillside, 

The forest shadows lie, 

And round about the sloping breast, 

Fair window gleams are nigh. 

III. 

The launches flit like fairies 

Or’e the sparkling argent breast, 

The air is perfume freighted 
With escence Cassia belssed. 

IV. 

And voices softly singing 

Are wafted sweet and light, 

The voices of the peasants ’neath 
The starlit dome of night. 

V. 

It seems that we together love 
When life is near its close, 

Will gaze upon the pale dead past 
As halo moonbeams glows. 

VI. 

And who will say life is not sweet. 

When love so sacred, thine, 

Is linked in happiness complete 
With fervor such as mine. 


SONGS OF THE WEST. 


45 


HOKAH. 

There’s a royal view of nature, mid these verdant circ¬ 
ling hills, 

And a spirit rich with soothing, round these valley 
winding rills, 

Stand upon Mt. Hope at sunset, as day’s king sinks 
golden down, 

And it seems as though this valley, holds in part his 
regal crown. 

Water’s burnished, placid waters, flame upon fair Co¬ 
mo’s crest, 

Rippling streams glide swiftly onward, flashing jewels 
o’er their breast; 

Bluffs where dimly, purple hazes, lean against the 
princely walls, 

Over which the crimson sunset, paints deep hues in 
heaven’s halls. 

In the distance house tops cluster, round the lofty 
temple spires, 

At your feet the sweetest song birds sing to days’ vast 
parting fires. 

Rears that sentinel of ages, bold Mt. Tom from Como’s 
shore, 

And the quaint lake nestling closely, tumbling playful 
at his door. 

Hills all tinted o’er with verdure, wind about the vil¬ 
lage streets, 

And the trees come trooping downward, till the waters’ 
side they greet. 

Could I paint a noble picture, I would place Lake 
Como in, 

And around and high above it, place each hill with 
verdant trim. 


46 


SILVER RIFTS. 


pireside poems. 


SILENT JOE. 

A ROMANCE OF THE OLYMPICS. 

Far West, Olympic summits rise 
Like fingers pale, near azure skies; 

As chained to glimmering Puget Sound, 

The virgin peaks like pearls are bound, 

And from the snows on mountain side 
The tall, gaunt forests stately glide; 

To valleys bearing towers of green 
Near where Pacific strews its sheen. 

In sylvan, burnished, bush crowned glen. 
Bedecked near murky rushgrown fen, 

Where clear the river rushes on, 

The strand to lie a kiss upon 
Is hewn'from forests, sleek and prim, 

A clearing small, a cabin trim 

With windows, narrow, doors made low. 

The woodland home of Silent Joe. 

The neighbors say, “Joe’s lost in books, 
More wrapt in lore than pretty cooks, 

The women smile, passing that way, 

A.nd wonder if ever there was a day 
When Joe had done a social deed, 

Or smiled or frowned with lover’s heed; 
Though distant, glum, they fain would know 
The past of hermit Silent Joe. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


47 


Some settlers came from the Southern clime, 
Where clings the purple 1 fruit of vine, 

To California’s golden sand 

And took near Joe a claim of land. 

A Western greeting was given to them. 

The boys soon built a cabin trim, 

Where trees tower high near a mountain side, 
And stretch away like an ocean wide. 

As the last hewn sturdy log they laid, 

A cheer arose for the clearing made. 

The pretty wife of the settler new 
With eyes like darts of heaven’s blue, 

Was thanking the boys in hearty way, 

For generous work they did that day, 

And offered an open door to all 
And friendly greetings for every call. 

But Joe the Silent said not a word, 

It seemed her words he scarcely heard; 

She stared, her glance fell to the ground, 

Joe’s breath came hard with smoth’ring sound. 
He walked away with deep drawn sigh, 

And entered his snug log cabin by; 

Then glancing down the valley green, 

He sighed “Alas, it might have been!” 

That night when fireplace flickered red, 

Joe sadly sat and dreamily said: 

“I thought her face was far from me; 

I thought ’twas dead her memory, 

Yet here in mountains by the sea 
Love’s pointed shaft has followed me. 

And I must gather my robe of pride 
And pass, a slave, to the other side. 


48 


SILVER RIFTS. 


“Her eyes grew dim, she loves me still. 

Oh cursed, oh cruel parents’ will, 

Deep in your grave can this thee'thrill, 
Though lost to me, she loves me still. 

We could not meet thus day by day, 

I could not fill that role in the play; 

Better to gather my robe of pride 
And pass like a slave, to the other side.” 

The morning winds snarled loud and churled; 
No smoke from the cabin of Joe uncurled, 
For Joe had passed with morning’s light 
For lands beyond the mountains’ white. 

Far north where beckon the Cascades gray, 
Joe the Silent went winding his way 
To light like a bird of unsteady aim, 

To enter somewhere a settler’s claim. 

The cabin’s empty, racked and bare; 

The passing people stand and stare 
And tell of hermit Silent Joe 
Who lived within some time ago. 

The blue eyed wife of the settler new, 

Looks over mountains veiled in blue, 

Then at the cabin deserted, bare, 

And dreams of Joe and the Southland fair. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


49 


MT. TACOMA (OR RAINIER) AT SUNSET. 

Heavens blue are slowly fading 
Into streaks with ruby tinged, 

Dark and dawn seem at meeting 

At the peaks with crimson fringed. 

Floods of tinted light are bathing 
Arrow peak and massive base 
As a ray through colored window 
Kiss an alabaster vase. 

Yonder sun is proudly sinking, 

Just a circle half is seen, 

Still with bronze and gold is linking 
Countless peaks in jeweled chain. 

Shadows now have ceased their hiding, 
Stealing, creeping, still they grow 
’Till from out the shades of evening 
Peeps a mound of spotless snow. 


CLIFF HOUSE AND SEAL ROCKS. 

White waves that beat in wild confusion, 

Here lap the land in mad intrusion, 

There ’gainst the cliff-crowned shore the waters beat, 
Out on the broad expanse the white sails fleet, 

On the wave-lapped rocks the sea lions call, 

Above the white winged birds do soar and fall. 



50 


SILVER RIFTS. 


The human throng that tread the pebbled beach 
Linger and listen to the wild vast song. 

They watch and learn and silent pass along, 

Eternal waves will lap and sing and reach 
When they have joined that spirit band that sings so 
glad 

Here on the beach the heart is full, almost sad. 


THE SPIRAL WEST. 

From the sterile stretch of the Western plain 
Rise the rock-ribbed summits of mountain chains. 
Steppes the Great Spirit buil firm long ago, 

Decking them over with eternal snow, 

As he planned a temple’s flawless dome 
Near the shore of Pacific’s boundless home, 

Where the massive steps lead one by one 
To the summit of Mt. Tacoma (Rainier) lone. 

Points the vast column the pale looming form, 

Where the cloud-ships anchor during the storm. 

How the lofty peaks of the Spiral West 
Yearning looks upward to Tacoma’s crest, 

Where the blue, blue lips of the watchful skies 
\Close are pressed to the snows of earth’s fair prize 
And the sun as he sinks in his Western nest 
Scatters roses of red o’er the white, white breast. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


51 


Oh, the turmoil world! could it see and learn 
The great truth that reads on the mountain stern 
At its base is earth but as heaven is neared 
All the dross that in days at the base appeared 
Have melted away in the chaste white peak 
That looms at the door which we all would seek 
As we sift the dross like this mountain white 
•We will upward reach up, up, to the light. 


DAWN ON THE SEA SHORE. 

Like crisp and bracing balm of fragrant, budding day, 
Like spirits freed from earthly ties ships float away, 
While at their keel the beaten waters laugh and play 
Across their path the wreathes of w r arring bubbles lay. 

The curling smoke like strings of pearl are upward 
borne, 

And float as fleecy clouds on lazy Summer noon, 

The shrouded mountains raise the hazy veil of morn 
And bare their virgin peaks to rays of sun’s warm 
boon. 

And lo! the full blown day is bared unto the world, 
Radiant and gracious wakes the earth to love 
The frequent screech of yon blue-breasted jay is hurled 
In discord notes as sorrows with our joys are wove. 

The crimson that heralded the birth of perfect day, 
Now yawning fades and sinks behind yon mountain 
high, 

And all the firmament is lit aflame, both sea and sky, 
While at the portals the fair young day in garlands lie. 



52 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


OUR FOREST FIRS. 

Ye towering fir that point like temple spires, 
Beneath whose heavenward leaning fingers 
The swaying branches wave like hanging lyres 
Struck by roving winds and round them lingers, 

The solemn plaintive strains, a broken hymn, 

A note is struck by ev’ry swaying limb 
And over forests tossing nodding heads, 

O’er rushing streams and vale and massive hill 
Is heard the dying sound, yet always fed 
By passing winds, which rise and fall at will. 

How proud your strength, a pillar in your might; 
Heed ye the echo, click and grating sound 
Of falling axe? For great though be thy height 
'Tis but the distance thou must spread the ground. 
Not dead—the fallen, shapely, forest’s pride; 

O’er seas, tall masts and massive hulls, astride 
The rolling billows, make the more a king 
Than when in idle pomp and rich array 
Thou wast content with saddened voice to sing 
A dual slave, by halves of night and day. 

No birds shall nest or flutter in thy arms 
But nobler forms of life thy shelter find, 

Thus scattered o’er the earth to house and warm 
And hearthstone, altar, cradle, bier, enshrine, 

Utility thy mission done, thy incense rise 
From countless household altars mount the skies. 
When fire and torch in heedless waste is ply’d, 
That which is wasted would others provide; 

When crashing, flame-lapped tress doth wanton fall 
Does man regard the want he may invite? 

Our forests do not rise at beck or call, 

Destruction heedless is crime ’gainst right. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


53 


A WATCHFUL MOTHER. 

Out in the warmth of an April sun 
An old hen sits with her brood of young; 

The golden tints are gauzily spun, 

Soft yellow hues blend mellow among 
The down of the busy little pets 
That cluster about where the old hen sets. 

One golden chick sprayed with bronze and white 
Sits snug at rest on the old hen’s back, 

And three small bills of ivory bright 

Peep from the mother’s feathers of black; 

As gazing about with watchful look, 

She warns them tenderly, cluck, cluck, cluck. 

Another chick is squirming its way 
To sleep, in warmth of a mother’s breast; 

The old hen shifts and tucks them away 
To rest in down of a feathery nest, 

She drowsily winks, then eager looks, 

For some stray chicky she clucks, clucks, clucks. 

A dozen of other chicks scattered about 

Some picking, or dreaming or scrambling home, 

Now hiding within, now playing without, 

The little home circle in which they roam 
Is gently surveyed by mother’s eye, 

Within the reach of a mother’s cry. 

Oh, fair little chicks, golden and brown, 

Oh, sweet little chicks, covered with down, 

In sunbeam glimmers ’round mother at play 
The sunlight is waning for to-day, 

And mother is watchfully calling within 
As clucking, she’s tucking her chickies in. 


54 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THROUGH PRISON BARS. 

Beside the heavy prison bars 
I saw a face of villians air, 

There circled lines like conscience scars 
’Round eyes of hard, cold stare. 

It seemed that such a brutal face 
■Could never know a holy love. 

I wondered if the Father’s grace 

The heart of such a man could move; 

And as I stood in twilight gray, 

Soft through the evening air, 

From chappie brown across the way 
■Came strains of a song of prayer. 

I watched the hardened feature change, 
They followed the simple strain, 

And then I knew that even such 

Was moved by the sweet refrain. 

***** 

I saw that face again in death 

The limes were drawn and deep; 

But not with mien of crimes harsh brush 
But curved with rest of sleep. 

The face that peared through prison bar? 
Was bold, in its sneering qualm, 

And here was not the conscience scars— 
In place was a brow of calm. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


55 


Beside the trim yet harsh iron bed, 

Lay a book of Christian prayer, 
The page to which the book-mark led 
Bore the selfsame tuneful air; 

I knew then that the Father’s love 
Soft through the evening air 
Had reached from out the realms above, 
Through strains of a song of prayer. 


SORROW. 

Sad bard, whose lyre the tender veins that web the heart, 
Yields plaintive chords, the sullen notes of human 
sighs, 

Thy dismal bars of shattered hopes must ever start 
The flood of tears, that eager seek the weary eyes. 

Why sadly touch the tender strings that weep so true? 
Thy weeping dries the salient drops, that breed 
sweet joy; 

Yet gloomy bard, in sleeping hours, as mystic dew 
Shall gather, silent floods, whose crystal depths 
decoy 

Blithe joy, to strike his willing lyre in lively tune, 

Then tears shall rise again, as playful showers in June. 



56 


SILVER RIFTS. 


IN CALM AND STORM. 

They stood by the seaside together 
In youth’s fair springtime of life, 

And watched the white waves come anid go 
And laughed at the watery strife; 

And whispered words of dreamy love 
As lips met lips in thrilling bliss; 

And in the sunshine love and hope 

Were linked in passion’s fervent kiss. 

They heeded not the white sails speed 
To far lands o’er the fickle sea, 

They thought not how the storm king’s reed 
Would beat the sea’s mad melody. 

They watched the white cliffs’ rugged spires 
Reflect the bright days’ brilliant tints, 

And said they were but lovelit fires, 

And smiled, with sea and sky content. 

* * * * * * 

They stand again beside the strand 
When sea and sky in tempest vie, 

Great billows roar in stearn command, 

And arrows flash across the sky. 

How long it seemed since sunshine gleams 
Enamored lit tfhe ocean’s breast, 

That long ago, when love’s young dreams 
Could see no foam on billows’ crest. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


57 


Again they homeward wind their way; 

They heed not how the tempest roar, 
For hand in hand, with hearts still warm 
They plod their way along the shore. 

They whisper not of life’s fair dream, 

But tell their love by time made dear; 
In calm and storm through life they learn 
To share in faith their joys and tears. 


DREAMING MOMENTS. 

Dreaming moments, areHhey pleasant? 

Sought for gem's of leisure hours; 
Dreaming moments king or peasant 
Seek to find in them a present, 

Of a space through fairy bowers, 
Captivating magic powers. 

See the king in hours of leisure, 

Dreaming dreams that soar so high, 
Grasping at each higher measure 
Till he holds the zenith treasure, 

Quick pursues the long drawn sigh, 
’Tis a dream and dreams swiftly fly.. 

And the peasant silent thinking, 

Plow and scythe are cast aside, 
From the magic cup he’s drinking, 
Bushels, weather, cents he’s linking, 
Acres, cattle, eggs and hide, 

’Tis a dream and dreams swift glide. 



58 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Dreaming moments, are they useful? 

Yes, when kept within their sphere. 
Stearn is oft’ the hours that’s workful, 
Tiresome, too, the hours that’s playful; 
Dreaming hours are therefore dear, 
Hoping hours cannot bring tears. 

Dreaming moments, narrow spaces, 

Margins to our heavy hours, 

Bubbles burst, we lose their traces, 

Catching glimpse of smiling faces 

Peeping from our fancies’ bowers. 
Though a dream, yet dreams have powers. 


THE SISTERS OF MERCY. 

There’s a face that’s pure and patient, 

I have seen it not in dreams, 

But in hospitals of mercy 

Near the sick it fairest beams; 

With a hand that soothing presses 
Where the pains are running high, 
And a touch that soft caresses 

Hearts that yearn the strength to die. 

There’s a groan far down the hallway, 
Patt’ring feet pass up the hall, 

As the mercy angel answers 

To the cry of pain’s grim call. 

Oh! the good these nuns are doing, 
'Nay, not e’en God’s highest towers 
Lean so near to heaven’s bosom 

As these chaste and humble flowers. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


59 


Oh, the love that Christ has gathered 
From the wreck of wordly strife, 

And, like lilies fair, has planted 
Here amid the groans of life. 

Though the world o’er flows with passion, 
Though sin’s clamors daily stain, 

If are left these mercy angels, 

Thou, O Christ, lived not in vain. 


MY BOY IN JEANS OF BLUE. 

In a tenament part of the city, 

On a crowded thoroughfare, 

He was sitting and humming a ditty 
With a grace that was debonaire; 

Such) blue eyes, a soul was stamped on them, 

And lips like a carmine stain, 

And my heart reached outward to him, 

For no art could such candor feign. 

’Twas a sight a king might have stopped to view, 
Was that noble form in his jeans of blue. 

And he raised a smiling face to mine 
As I fondled a raven curl, 

And I spoke to my little Palatine, 

Though his dress bore no stately purl; 

’Twas then that I saw in those eager eyes 
A hunger I then could not name; 

It seemed to be in the azure skies 
And alight with the sunset’s flame; 

And I sought to find for myself a clue 
Of the wants of this boy in jeans of blue. 



6o 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Of his father, alas, ’twas a tale of rum, 

And a saintly mother that worked for her boy, 
Though/ the wants of life were oftimes glum, 

Yet she struggled to bring him peace and joy; 

And the wants of my sweet-faced manakin 
I studied and read them through and through; 

’Twas the spark of trut/h that moved within, 

And I knew if this germ so early grew 

There was flames of love ’neath the coat of blue. 

So I guided the life of this little man 
To the best I could with my modest means; 

And a thousand times I have blessed the plan 
That opened the light to my boy in jeans. 

The saintly mother, ah, love knows the way; 

Such love would ennoble most any life. 

Now her heart is young, though her locks are gray 
For she yielded a son with genius rife, 

And I thank the God who had builded so true, 

From the heart that was lodged 1 ’neath the coat of blue 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


6l 


AT ANCHOR. 

I. 

Where sea gulls ramble and white waves play, 
Out in the blue of the frolicsome bay, 

At rest like a soldier after the fray, 

Is anchored a fanciful ship of gray. 

II. 

I wonder whence came this ocean prize, 

I wonder what is its merchandise; 

If priceless pearls from India’s seas, 

Were wafted hence by the fretful breeze. 

III. 

I fancy my ship thats long at sea, 

Out in the harbor beckons to me; 

And all the wealth of my childish dreams 
From the old gray holt flickers and gleams. 

IV. 

I know when the wind blows free once more 
The ship will sail from this quiet shore, 

And I will awake from my fancy queer, 

And know that I slept when my ship was here. 


FRIENDSHIP. 

It is not in bold expression of love-bound phrase, 
Not in mellow mingling of rich worded praise, 

But in gentle acts of faith and the kindly deeds 
Scatter’d the path of life along, those fructious seeds 
Strengthened by years of time, will upwards grow and 
reach, 

Linking as they grow they will others kindness teach. 



62 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Friendship, a word so vast, yet narrow is its bounds, 
Oft’ we feel how shalow this sweet and grand word 
sounds; 

Shallow for the fickleness that men have 'chained it to, 
Shallow not the name, but the chains that round it 
grew. 

Sweet the true, vast meaning is, of friendship to friend; 
Oh, the thrilling touch of the currents 'it would send. 
Life would golden harvest to fraternity be, 

And love would sail a fearless ark on life’s tempest sea. 


PATIENCE. 

When the eyes grow sore from weeping, 
And the head throbs wild with pain, 
And the sorrows sternly creeping 
Press against the weary brain; 

Then, oh God, but let the shimmer 
Of thy love shine from afar, 

That the kindled hopes may glimmer 
O’er life’s storm tossed shallow bar. 

When grave doubts conspire with reason, 
And we falt’ring, trembling, wait 
While around us plots and treason 
Darken e’er thy glittering gate, 

Then, oh God, but light the beacon 
On the highest rock crowned hill, 
That our bearings we may reckon 
While we learn Thy holy will. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


63 


MOTHER. 

The sky of blue, that graced my baby world, 
Her eyes. 

The sun, which first life’s love unfurled, 

Her face. 

The cradle, of strange angel whispered dreams, 
Her arms. 

Lyre of sweet lullaby’s still, still, it sems, 

Her voice, 

Sings to my soul, heart beats that throb for me. 
Font of devotion, sweet mother, ’tis thee. 


DREAMING. 

A dreaming, only dreaming, 

Methought I saw the love of other days, 

And lights that long have been but darkened rays, 
■Came gleaming, sweetly gleaming, 

And each dear treasure of my buried theme, 

Lay sleeping fair upon the arms of dream. 

Yet stealing, softly stealing, 

Each wistful look, and lo, each tender token, 

Each flute-toned word that love had fervent spoken, 
Revealing, so fair revealing, 

Those priceless hours, those love crowned days of yore,. 
The sacred vision time can ne’er restore. 



6 4 


SILVER RIFTS. 


A dreaming, only dreaming, 

Torture and ecstacy beyond compare, 

Oh, dearest love, dense night hath garlands rare, 

But streaming, softly streaming, 

Falls bright with shimmer morning’s mellow gleam, 
Like balm and halo spirit of my dream. 


THE FLAMING SHIELD. 

Dense dome with clouds still blacker than the night. 
Like evil spirits in starless sky, 

Tall pines that moan to stupid owls whose fright 
Hoots at their sullenness, the cuckoo’s cry 
Wind hurled is haggled to the battling sea 
Where white the warring billows laugh with glee. 

Frowns from the hill the church towers reaching spire 
Like black arm crawling upwards in the night, 
When, lo, a rift above, a burst of fire, 

The bale moon’s sword is drawn, down falls the light, 
The cross glows white like opal flash to wield 
Strange fires that flash Christ’s love—a flaming shield. 
How like when passion sears and scars the soul, 
When grief and sorrow darken all our sky 
And baren seems the world of peace, life’s whole 
A mocking, shallow cry, “Life is a lie.” 

But from above hopes opal shaft doth weild 
Strange fires that flash Christ’s love—a flaming shield. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


65 


THE HERMIT. 

I. 

They said he was a hermit and 
In solitude did dwell 
Deep down a dismal mountain glen 
In some untrodden dell, 

And that his life was fruitless of 
The deeds that stir men’s hearts, 

And shuddered at the silence vast 
Of those untrodden parts. 

II. 

Ah! who could know the feelings sweet 
That corded through his veins, 

Or who could know what thoughts would greet 
With pleasures or with pains; 

But I who knew this modest man, 

Reserved to most the world, 

To me he taught the scope to scan 
A world with joy unfurled. 

III. 

He lead me in the morning dews 
Down in the meadow glades, 

He read the hearts and tinted hues 
Of flowers and drooping blades. 

I knew from smiles that lit his face, 

He heard a holier note, 

With deeper thrill, and sweeter grace 
Than came from human throat. 

IV. 

I saw again at mountain’s base, 

He gazed at peaks afar, 

And again saw I his tender face 


66 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Like beams of morning’s star; 

He read the lines that hill-tops trace 
Near clouds of heaven’s blue, 

He reached from mire our lowly place 
And learned the song of heaven’s true. 

V. 

I saw again by the brooklet, 

Where warring waters whirled. 

He tossed a pebble in the stream, 

And forth to him unfurled 
The rippling note that tender trilled 
As waters surged and twirled, 

A bubble crest the puncture filled 

And was downward seaward hurled. 

VI. 

’Twas said that love had driven him 
To dwell mid mountains green., 

And leave this warring world of men 
Beyond this mountain screen. 

But here the realms of nature grand 
Grouped fair, and he their child, 
Learned all their noble languages 
And tamed his passions wild. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


67 


COTTAGE DREAMS. 

A cottage wreathed in countless day dreams, 
Sweet visions come and go at will, 

And time can never dim the home gleams, 
While memories magic wand can thrill. 

A child’s rife fancy cast the bubbles, 

They lingered near the window vin#, 

His visage is now marred by troubles, 

Yet fleeting still the bubbles shine. 

In manhood bubbles burst and sadness, 

Oft’ casts a furrow with a smile, 

But c|hild!hood’s dreams still lend their gladness, 
To drown our heavy hours awhile. 

I hear the little barefeet patter, 

Adown the hallway and the stair, 

And in the kitchen hear the chatter, 

Of merry voices here and there. 

Fair cottage dreams of childish visions, 

I greet thy presence from afar, 

And sweetest moments of Elysian, 

Oft’ grace my night, as morning star. 



68 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


THE SPIRIT OF TEARS. 

I. 

I saw him silent in homes of men, 
Sometimes where grandure reigned, 
In haunts of poverty and sin 

Plis thoughtful soul unstained, 

I knew as he pressed a withered hand 
Or stroked a suffering brow 
This spirit of such stern demands 
A seraph was by God endowed. 

II. 

Some call him hated poverty, 

Some think him bitter pain, 

Some say relentless sorrow, yet 
He leaves no Stygian stain. 

For sorrow, poverty and pain, 

Oft gifts a suffering frame 
With deeper will and loftier aim, 

A soul of sympathies grain. 

III. 

This seraph we fear his sombre dress, 
Mark you his garments right, 

A sob of pain we sometimes bless 
For its companion light. 

And webs that sorrow weaves to joy 
Are anchors that hold the ship 
And sufferings shaft is but a buoy 
Where bright waves rise and dip. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


69 


THE SINGER’S SONG. 

Grandly the sweet strains are swelling, 
Music so heavenly sweet, 

Tenderly true she is telling 

Pathos and love in each beat. 

Softly the voice now is pleading, 

Love tones are floating the air; 

Tender the true strains are leading 
As in the notes of a prayer. 

Loud bursting granduer is reeling, 
Filling the soul with sweet bliss; 

At love’s fair shrine hope is kneeling, 
Sealing the vow with a kiss. 

’Tis but the same oft told story, 
Acted by Cupid in pairs; 

Still all the tenderest glory 

Lurks round those familiar airs. 



70 


SILVER RIFTS. 


LITTLE DEEDS. 

I. 

Life is so rapid in its scoring, 

So short for trifling things to lag the aim, 

So swift the moments flow twixt morn and night, 

So many things our time and mind doth claim. 

II. 

Thus little deeds are timed in their prayer 

When mad ambition grasps to reach' so high. 

Thus smaller claims are oftimes pleasilng fair, 

But modest in the race where fortunes vie. 

III. 

Little deeds, pray! what are they, I ask? 

Too vast the catalogue that is not great, 

These little gems would we but fain unmask, 

Would hold the sought-for joys we priceless rate. 

IV. 

Is life too short for kindly deeds? 

For little tender acts that’s good and true? 

Ambition’s highway heaped with broken reeds 
Is brightened by the loving words we strew. 

V. 

Mad Fortune’s ride o’er circuit of the year, 

Is crowned with faded hopes and sorrows tear; 

The sunshine of the life creeps in between 

And kindness is the bar that gloom clouds screen. 

VI. 

The flowers that spring rife around the door 
Are watered by the drops of falling rain. 

Kind little deeds like spotless feathers soar, 

Yet in their flight they carry loads of pain. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


71 


VII. 

Linked be our lives to kindly litle deeds, 

Our competence ’twould be for little needs, 
The world! is vast, all things cannot be great; 
But most may yield to pain a kindly mate. 


CHARITY. 

The limb tnat’s fractured when tenderly bound, 
Together will grow and knit and be whole; 

The life that has fallen in errors profound, 

We must bind about with love knots the soul. 

’Tis easy to scorn with contempt and chide, 

’Tis easy to haughtily gather our pride, 

But nobler by far the kindlier heart 

That bathes the wounds and lessens their smart. 

In fatal moments when passions run high, 

False steps are taken, a stumble, a fall, 

And now when the heart in pain heaves a sigh, 
Shall we taunt with contempt, or kindly call 

From depths of darkness to tenderly raise 
One life to sunlight, enobling their ways, 

A deed so grand that the conquest of all 
Compared vainglorious is and small. 



72 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE OLD AND THE NEW. 

Deep bells in joy rebound 
Then die away, 

Jangle and echo sound, 
Mingling their lay. 

So shall it always be, 

Life must be so, 

Echoes float sad to thee, 

Young hearts beat glad for thee. 
As the years flow. 
Ding dong to fleeting year, 
Ring bold the bells. 

Ding dong to crisp New Year, 
Gay New Year bells. 

Life knell' and death knell 
Old and new, 

Sad bell and glad bell, 

Floats deep to you. 


LIFE. 

A cradled dream that lips have never told, 
Lullaby, baby, sleep; 

A laughing nymph when curls are running gold 
My kisses loved one keep. 

And then—oh, life is but a joyful dream, 
Flushed youth all pleasure blend. 

Too soon,—oh, things are not what they seem. 
So swift,—so swift,—the end. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


73 


OLD AGE. 

Serenely resting ’neath a load of fruitful years, 

A face that fleeting time has marked with changeful 
tears, 

Calm eyes that long have ceased with lustre-flash to 
beam; 

In place are lurking charms that round them love to 
dream. 

Subdued and patient face, with smiles like halo grand, 
One seems to hear an echo from another land. 

The joys now past still leave fair gleams, as rays of sun 
On features dreamy, when life’s sculptor work is done 
Methinks, that sorrows raise us to a higher sphere 
In which the heavy load is laid we gather here, 

And all the joys and sorrows years have entertwined, 
Have marked the features o’er and calmness deep out¬ 
lined. 

Thy hopes are anchored on hereafter’s beacon shore, 
The winds will waft thee onward when life’s calm is 
o’er; 

’Tis but a narrow space where time to thee will be 
Ins spirit freed, one vast beyond, eternity. 

And hopes and joys and sorrows of the time seared past 
Will fade forever on life’s evening farewell blast. 


74 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE COURT OF TIME. 

I. 

’Twas near the hallowed midnight hour 
In the court of Father Time, 

And distant bells with tuneful power 
Most merrily did chime. 

II. 

A long procession slowly wound 

Its silent way toward the throne, 

While strains of thrilling music sound 

And shimmering lights with splendor shone. 

III. 

A stately column gray haired lords 

Marched slowly down the 'mighty hall, 

Then stately stood; each had his wards, 

Of pages, knights and soldiers tall. 

IV. 

Then o’er the throng a silence hung, 

Each looked with awe towards the throne, 

As backward gilded doors were swung, 

And! lo,—the monarch diadem shone. 

V. 

Each raised a helmet’s shining steel, 

Then sat to hear their monarch’s voice. 

Great bells with brazen; throats did peel, 

The gates swing back, a figure poise. 

VI. 

Enter, pilgrim! the monarch say, 

These are thy brothers who time before 

Hath scored his life, each mark a day, 

His life of days a year, not more. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


75 


VII. 

March on ye column of the years 

Before thy king who life hath given, 

With records of your joys and tears 
Before thy brother, 1897. 

VIII. 

Then on before that sickle keen 

The throng of years with stately itread 

Like spectres, gray and weird, are seen 
The stately column of the dead. 

IX. 

From Adam’s time they pass and bow, 
Most bear a stern and haggard look; 

But one bears a cross on a radiant brow, 
And in his hands he holds a book. 

X. 

Each raised his helmet as he past 

The happy year which bore the Christ; 

O’er frowning Time his splendor cast 
That for them all he may suffice. 

XI. 

When, lo, the column all had done 

The strange year stands before king. 

And what hast thou, oh last year, been 

To the world of men thou earnest from? 

XII. 

The old year bowed his head and sighed, 
Then hands his scroll to monarch stern, 

The monarch read aloud and cried, 

Another year that man must mourn. 


76 


SILVER RIFTS. 


XIII. 

Oh, years, hear the tale told anew; 

Away, fallen year! away! away! 
This tear-stained record tells too true 
That tyrant! hand has held its sway. 


XIV. 

Back to the rear thou latest year 

With brand still blacker than the rest, 

Thou gifted with talent wrung tears 

From man, drank them and called them blest. 

XV. 

Back, let thy forehead bear thy lie. 

March on ye years of faithless time, 

Christ’s year still stood, none strove to vie 
The light that from his helmet shine. 


THE PLANTS ON MY WINDOW SILL. 

The moor is sweet in the spring time 
Where the slender lilies bloom, 

There’s crimson tints where roses climb 
And a heavenly perfume; 

There’s few things that I love more dear, 
When the ground is piled with snow, 
Than watch the plants in my window near. 
The pale snbws bloom and grow. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


77 


The clustered bells of primrose flowers, 

And the fucia purpled o’er, 

The daisies green and tiny bowers, 

The geranium’s rich store; 

There’s no place where I find more cheer 
When the winter snarls without, 

Than by the plants in my window near, 
Where friendly blooms peep out. 

Oh, who would say they love them not, 
Those flowers on the window sill, 
There’s greetings sweet by each begot, 

A room to perfume fill; 

There’s few things that I love more dear, 
When the ground is piled with snow, 
Than watch the plants in my window near, 
The pale snows bloom and grow. 


SUNBEAMS. 

Golden sunbeams lightly dancing 

Through the leaf-web of the bower, 
Gilded' sunbeams sprightly prancing 
O’er the hearts of tinted flowers. 

Glittering sunbeams brightly coating 
Rippling waters of the lake, 
Sparkling sunbeams deftly floating, 

In the launches bubbled wake. 



78 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Fairy little artist sunbeams 

Sketching figures on my floor, 

Flashing, fickle, little day gleams 

Creeping through my latticed door. 

O’er the page that I am writing 
Figures mingle in their play. 

Fluttering figures are inditing 

Beauties with each gliding ray. 

Live and light the day with splendor, 
Follows in your wake a smile, 

With their sparkling, rippling, grandeur. 
Sunbeams best my heart beguile. 


KEEPSAKES. 

We were going to leave the old home. 
And moving-time was nigh. 

So we were packing busily, 

My faithful wife and I. 

My wife in years was fifty odd, 

And I was full three score, 

And through our wedded years of life 
We’d gathered here our store. 

A trunk lay near the open door, 

With worn and battered sides, 

Ond wife was slowly packing in 
Love’s treasures, mother’s pride. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


79 


“Here, Mark, is Maggie’s first wee shoe— 
Sweet Mag, our oldest child— 

She married well—God bless her home— 
Dear Maggie fair and mild. 

And here’s the shining locks of gold 
From little Ray that died; 

Dear baby curls that fluttered here 
Then clustered in paradise. 

And Ben/, our handsome rolling stone. 
Whose smile won all our hearts, 

Just see his baby flannel shirt; 
Threadbare it is in parts; 

And here’s a curl of sister’s hair 
I’ve had for forty years, 

And mother gave this vase to me 
All wet with parting tears. 

I’ll tell you, love, no miser can 
Love more his hoarded gold 
Than I these priceless keepsakes do 
In this trunk so worn and old. 


8o 


SILVER RIFTS. 


SHIPWRECKED. 

The last dear hope is swathed! in deepest gloom, 

I hear the breakers beat the rock strewn shore, 

And hear, like hollow echoes from the tomb, 

The mad sea’s beat God’s limits as they roar. 
Helpless my ship of hope is settling down-, 

My God! how hard it is to drown. 

The life-boat tosses on the angry sea, 

And one lone man stands beckoning to me, 

And yet, have I the courage for the leap, 

So angry rants the soulless, hungry deep? 
Fainting, I grasp an outstretched friendly hand, 

And wake to bless the owner’s safe command. 

Oh, when the soul aghast reviews sins’ sea, 
Writhing about it so tempestuously, 

Passions that sear and burn if you deny, 

Tempt witih a pleasure cup, if you comply; 
Backward we cannot turn, ahead lies the shore, 
Around the frail life-boat the waves leap and roar. 

Christ in his life-boat stands beckoning each, 

His angels are at our side if we but reach, 

On the strong passion ship pleasures are free, 
Who ’ll risk the life-boat on such a wild sea? 

My God! how the timid ones, abaft and afore, 

Sink with life’s passion ship to rise no more. 

After the billows fight, after the roar, 

Countless wrecked cargoes are strewn on the shore; 
Idly the life-boat floats near to the cross 
Where Christ and His angels are counting their loss 
Waking the faithful ones, who slept at His side, 
And leaned on His promises through the mad tide. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


8l 


THE MOTHER O'N CHRISTMAS EVE. 

Distance divides us, mother, 

This 'Christmas Eve, 

Feelings of sadness smother 
While hopes conceive, 

Love still unites us, mother, 

While prayers we breathe. 

Past seems but yesterday 
I played at thy feet, 

Still thy dear soft brown, eyes 
Mine eyes doth meet, 

And iru our hearts there lies 
Love, with each beat. 

Distance is broken now, 

Love spans the space, 

Hope sends his messages 
, Swift in his pace. 

And in his passages 
I greet thy face. 

Sweet Angels are singing 
Joy songs of praise, 

They also are bringing 
1 Peace with their lays, 

Bright let its rays entwine, 

My heart with thine. 


82 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE PLANK FOR THE BOYS, 

Hold fast the plank of honor, boys; 
The years will make you a man. 

Many allurement will decoy, 

Hold fast my boy! Yes, you can. 

How many will sink around you, 
Down! Down! God knows how deep. 
They’ll try to drag you with them too, 
Hold fast my boy, don’t sleep. 

Cling to the plank though waters foam, 
"Twill float you safe to land, 

Where waits a noble, happy home 
That honor, alone can/ command. 

The safest plank has tears and joys, 
Cling to the plank of honor, boys. 


THE DISGUISED BLESSING. 

“My tooth aohes so, my mamma, dear; 

“What makes God send us pain? 

I’m sure we can’t feel happy while 
We thus must oft’ complain.” 

“If all were joy, my darling boy, 

There would be no joy then; 

For joy is but an angel sweet 
Who lifts on spotless wing 
Our hearts from gloom of shadows deep 
Up where the joy-birds sing. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


83 


‘‘The ills of life distress one so.” 

He shook his manly head. 

“Life’s scarcely worth the living it 
The world’s so full of dread;” 

Yet pain his mind had broadened much 
And sympathy grew keen; 

I think the world made better, since 
This mind was taught to know, 
That life held something better than 
Selfish pleasures can bestow. 

“These years had joys and sorrows all.” 

His head was bowed with age 
And o’er the past his memory 

Turned slow each potent page. 
“Life’s had its joys, I loved them much; 
Year after year brought store; 

But ev’ry loving tenderness 

That graced life’s open door, 

Had first a frail foundation stone 
That pain had' spread) before.” 


8 4 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


SUCCESS AND FAME. 

There is an old woman whose name is Success, 
With a horde of babes at her heels 
Who are clamoring ever for kiss or caress, 

With rushes and falls and sideway reels 
After toys, the old woman flings fast, here and there 
The contesting babes to amuse; 

While she swift onwards runs with' a laughing air, 
Looking back where the toys do confuse. 

If some bold rushing babe dares to venture too near, 
She will grasp him up with wrinkled arms 
And hug with such vim that 'a most joyful tear 
Is born ’neath the smile that charms. 

Just a moment while joy tears do dry on his face 
And Success has learned his name, 

When she casts him away with a careless grace, 

To the arms of the fleet maid Fame. 

But Dame Fame is capricious, and straight way she tires 
Of a burden every one sees, 

And she beckons the angel of death unawares 
While she murmurs these words to the breeze, 

“It was but for a moment I embraced him thus, 

Just to see how the mad world would stare, 

With his errors and virtues the old world will fuss, 
But hlis critics await him in God’s over-there.” 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


*5 


LOVE’S AFTERHUSH. 

I. 

They differed, hot words were uttered, 

The night brought hours for thought; 

Each heart with pain throbbed and fluttered 
And yearned for an hour peace frougbt. 

II. 

The smoke of battle was over, 

The wounds had left tlheir scars, 

And scents of a new moon’s clover 
Arose to a million stars. 

III. 

Each wished for a soft word spoken, 

A kiss and a sweet embrace, 

But pride had the compact broken, 

And pride still spanned the space. 

IV. 

They dreamed of a lovers’ greeting, 

A life of sweetest bliss, 

Yet life like their dreams were fleeting, 

And time brought another kiss. 

V. 

Another love not so fretful, 

As rash vows of the past, 

A love that was calm and thoughtful, 

A love that had come to last. 

VI. 

A romance of youthful fancy, 

They smile at youth’s mad rush, 

And think of the love and duty, 

That comes with the afterhush. 


86 


SILVER RIFTS. 


IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 

I saw the snow-capped mountain, pure as marble white, 
The sinking sun shed, crimson blushes, as of love; 

The stealing shadows crept and grew, till all was night, 
Then peep’d the moon, from out a silver cloud above. 

I thought of a youth I long had held most dear, 
How pure anld bold as yon mountain was his life; 
The shadows crept from out tfhe gay saloon, so near 
They fell upon his face, a fire that lit a strife. 

A fair young heart pours out a soulful prayer 
That God may right a brother’s mind, now gone 
awronig; 

I hear a mother’s sigh that lingers long, to tear 
The sunshine notes from out her daily song. 

I see a temple spire, borne on wings o tears and sighs, 
I see a finger pointing all unanswer’d prayers; 

Eureka is the motto. Hope! Is succor nigh? 

Ask those restor’d to freedom. Whence their lack of 
cares. 

The moon now gleams from out the silver cloud above, 
Itilooks on countless unmarked graves unnamed, un¬ 
loved; 

But one, a mound of flowers and verdure green— 

A mother and a sister'murmur, “It might have been.’* 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


87 


THE LILIES’ ANTHEM. 

Love’s bright gem I will cherish, 

Passion I spurn to possess, 

Love lives yet passion will perish, 

When novelty cease to caress. 

White wings the angels have lent me 
To form in the grace of a leaf, 
While just a touch of their halo 

Has crowned my heart with a wreath. 

Let leaves in sunshine grow purer, 

Let rays tinge with yellow my heart. 
While the anthem I will utter, 

Sweet purity ne’er from me part 


CHAPEL PRAYER. 

Soft sweet sounds of music stealing 
From the chapel on the hill, 

Humbly peasants there are kneeling, 

Songs of prayer their hearts doth thrill. 

Soft sweet sounds of music stealing 
Out upon the crisp night air, 

Bursts and swells of soulful feeling 
Every heart is raised in prayer. 

Soft sweet sounds of music stealing 

Hearts from sin and minds from greed 
Pours the balm of magic healing, 

Planting deep the fractious seed. 



88 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Soft sweet sounds of music stealing 
Over hills and fields of snow, 
Willful echoes bear the greeting 
Breezes waft them far away. 

Chimes of merry bells are peeling, 
Prayer is o’er and angels raise, 
Wings of wihite and upwards soaring 
Carry messages and prai'se. 


BABY’S CARE. 

x have read of many mothers 
That have shifted baby’s care, 

For the glitter and the glare, 

Of the social glitter, fair. 

But if fortune lent me millions, 

Royal robes, of smiles no dearth, 
I am sure than when night’s mantle 
Gathered ’round the quiet earth; 

I would press my darling closely, 

’Till the sweet eyes closed in rest. 
Kiss, and tuck away so cozy, 

Like a robin in her nest. 

And when rays of morning sunlight 
Opened wide, those eyes of blue. 
Not for hours, of stolen slumber, 
Would I miss my darling’s coo. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


89. 


TO A FRIEND. 

Friend, here’s to the wreaths that in friendship we 
wove. 

Each flower entwined was a kindly word, 

Let’s lay the dear emblem on honor’s «hritie. 

This endless circlet, thy friendship and mine. 

Time will wrinkle our faces as years fleet by, 

And locks of manhood with silver he’ll dye. 

These flowers will blossom in memory anew 
Just as we plucked them when fragrant they grew. 

By seashore we heard the vast voice of the deep, 
While white crested waves o’er the pebbles did creep, 
How changeful this voice, like our own little lives 
As mad storms of life o’er our joys fiercely drives. 
The calm that must follow that wild lashing sea 
Will lull back sweet peace and happiness to thee. 
Then here’s to wreathes that in friendship we wove, 
Each flower entwined was a kindly word. 

May years as they fleet, deck with garlads the shrine. 
Where gathered and wreathed is thy friendship and 
mine. 



90 


SILVER RIFTS 


TO THE DYING YEAR. 

Swift the midnight hour is flying, fllying, 

Fast the grim old year is dying, dying, 

Colder grows each wind blown breath 
With the iciness of death. 

Gray old year so seared and gaunt, shorn and gaunt, 
Cease! No more thy memories flaunt. Avaunt, avaunt! 
Grating memories that I hate 
Let death them anihilate. 

I’ll forgive thy cruel spell, hated spell, 

If the jingling New Year bell, merry bell, 

Memories of my racking pains, 

All ignoble old year stains; 

Wild are flung beyond the world, pulsing world. 
Through forever boldly hurled, hopeless hurled 
All the old year’s heart seared spell; 

And the cheery New Year bell 
Rings sweet prospect in its knell; 

Gay and gladsome New Year bell. 


A MOTHER’S GOOD-BYE. 

Good-bye! ’Twas a word low spoken, 

Half smothered with sobs and tears. 
Good-bye! ’Twas a last sweet token 
To the loves of many years. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


91 


Though the world lay vast before him, 

’Twas a space oft fraught with pain, 

And at the portals thoughts most grim 
Would cover most his aims. 

He pressed one form now stooped with years, 

A mother’s heart throbbed with his own, 

Who, as she pressed him, spoke with tears 
These words in loving tone: 

“Years may pass over our heads, my boy, 

Till I press thee again to my heart; 

It may be never on this fair earth 
My blessing I can thus impart. 

“Few words I will say as I bid you adieu; 

One tenderly earnest command, 

Thou knowest the paths of honor true, 

My darling boy, let them expand. 

“When a world frowns down the steps you take, 

List your mother’s last prayer and command; 
When your will stands fast though the heart-strings 
quake, 

’Tis honor* love, let it expand.” 


92 


SILVER RIFTS. 


SONG OF THE OCEAN WAVES. 

The ceaseless waves of the ocean 
Are spraying upon the sand, 

Now rolling in graceful motion 
And bursting upon the strand. 

Or beating the song of ages, 

Against the rocks of time, 

Now when the wild sea rages, 

And billows cliffward climb. 

Or when the deep is chrysolite, 

Asleep in dreamlike calm, 

With sunbeam gems a flickering bright, 
Soft kissed by breeze of balm; 

Or when the misty mantle gray, 

Wraps drear the vast seas o’er, 
And sea-gulls screech an answering lay 
To fog-horns near the shore; 

Still sing the waves of the ocean 
The bars of one vast song, 

Life’s ebbing and flowing motion, 

The coming and going throng. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


93 


MY HERO KITTY. 

It came to me strangely one morning— 
A kitten, hungry and thin, 

A ribbon its neck ’round adorning; 

It purred as I let it in. 

I knew it had strayed from its owner, 
’Twas pretty though very lean; 

It seemed to grow quite contented, 

And stride with such graceful mien. 

It grew to be robust and handsome, 
Our kitty of white and gray. 

And baby was never so happy 
As when with kitty at play. 

’Twould purr and blink so coaxing, 

As frolicking at my feet, 

’Twould play with the curtain tassels 
Or poise so winsome and' sweet. 

One morning our baby and kitty 
Were playing upon the floor; 

Kitty was rolling a yarn-ball 
The laughing baby before. 

I had been working and singing 
At morning’s household routine, 

Glad that my petted baby 

Was happy, contented, serene. 

I entered the room lightly singing 
Nor babe, nor kitty were there; 

My song had ceased, and there came. 
The sobs of a mother’s care. 


94 


SILVER RIFTS. 


The ball that the kitty was rolling 
Was missing now from the floor, 

The thread of the high-colored yarn 

Lay stretching out through the door. 

Like the flash and scorch of lightning 
The stinging thought swift fell; 

The men were repairing our pump 
And perchance left open the well. 

I followed the yarn in a frenzy, 

For baby could only creep; 

Swift ’round the house I hastened, 

There, there was the open well deep. 

And there sat my darling baby 
Peeping over into the hole. 

Oh, God! what a thrill of terror 
Grasped and froze my soul! 

I feared to step any nearer, 

Lest baby see me and fall, 

But kitty lay rolling close by her 

All twisted with yarn from the ball. 

My baby turned gleefully laughing 
At kitty’s antics and play, 

As slowly I crept upon them 

And grasped my baby away. 

* * * * * 

Our baby has grown to a woman. 

And kitty is old and lame. 

No longer she tumbles and frolics 
For age has enfeebled her fame. 


fireside poems. 


95 


But if kindness will keep the dear kitty, 

I surely her life will prolong; 

For ’twas ki/tty that saved our baby 
That day—by rolling the ball along. 


IN FLOWER TIME. 

Ha, little romp, with eyes so blue, 

The field and forest’s blooming for you; 
Your bonnet don and hillward climb— 
Ha, little romp, it’s flower time. 

Each tiny peeper’s opened eyes 
Are gazing at the blue, blue skies. 

It’s flower time, sweet flower time 
When all the world’s a pretty rhyme 
From April fair to Autumn gray, 

The world’s so pleasant, bright and gay, 

In flower time. 

In Winter time when snow is here, 

And frozen earth no flowers rear, 

Let plants upon your window sill, 

The cheerful room with perfume fill; 

Let leaf and blossom creep and climb 
And fill your life with flower time. 

Dear flower time, sweet flower time, 
When all the world’s a pretty rhyme, 
Through Spring time fair and Winter gray, 
Oh, spread the leaf and blossom gay, 

Of flower time. 



SISTER OF CHARITY’S DREAM. 


In dreams it floated pure to me, 

A face from a bright somewhere; 
From out God’s great eternity 
It floated lily fair. 

A child I had found that morning, 

An orphan of the street, 

With curls of brown adorning 

A face that was heavenly sweet; 

I had kissed the tired wayfarer 

And smoothed the straggling curls 
And told a fairy tale for her 
Of the worth of Godly pearls. 

I wonder was this the mother’s face 
Come back from realms above, 

To yield a spirit’s soft embrace 
As token of Godly love. 

It floated away as soothing dream 
And then in the morning bright, 

I gazed in baby’s face abeam 

Like the face of my dream last night. 
I knelt and sighed an earnest prayer 
In the flood of mellow light; 

I prayed that baby sleeping fair 

Might dream of the same sweet sight. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


97 


SHELTERED. 

How the scolding winds are howling, 
Brigands ’round my house-walls prowling 
And it seems a demon scowling, 

Ranting, jars my window pane. 

I care not how winds are blowing, 
Bright the hearth-fire near me glowing, 
O’er my visions scope is throwing 

Pictures that are free from pain. 

And straightway I fall to dreaming, 

All the things I love are gleaming, 

All the hopes I prize are streaming 
In a rapture through my brain; 

So I laugh while winds are howling, 
Brigands ’round my house-walls prowling 
And it seems a demon scowling 

Flees, before my happy strain. 


TO MRS. SMITH-HAY WARD’S HOLLYHOCKS. 

[In front of Mrs. Smith-Hayward’s home between 
the sidewalk and the street is a rife growth of holly¬ 
hocks, which have brought into existence the following 
lines.] 

There’s a very pretty custom 
In the tropic, southern land, 

Planting flowers near the roadway 
To, in blossoms, bright expand. 



9 8 


SILVER RIFTS. 


When they pass a tall banana, 

Or the white cap jasmine flowers, 
At their neighbors gate, a greeting, 
Seems to linger mid their bowers. 

And perchance a thought of sorrow 
Dies amid the fragrant air, 

And a bright hope for to-morrow, 
Greets you in ihe flowers fair. 

Flowers, fairest, fragrant flowers, 

Plant them oft’ where fullest seen, 
Under shadows of the bowers, 

On the spreading sward of green. 

For the world was made for beauty, 
Troublous discords only mar, 

Let your eyes feast on the flowers, 
For your troubles,—find a star. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


LEOINE. 

Thou are so fair, my child, my Leoine, 

And I am going home. 

Thou art so frail, my love, my Leoine, 

And I am going home. 

God’s will be done, yet oh, the world of sin 
I leave the all alone to battle in, 

My Leoine, my Leoine. 

The night grows fast, and darkness crowding in, 
Veils thy dear face, my Leoine. 

Give me thy hand. How dear thy love has been, 
My child, my Leoine. 

God will protect thee, love, dearest; oh then 
Reach for my hand, my Leoine. 

Death cannot part us, child; be strong, be strong, 
Though I am going home. 

Though planets roll between, from out the throng 
Where thousands roam, 

I will o’ertake thee, love, when danger’s near. 
Reach for my hand, my child, and do not fear; 
God will protect thee, love, trust Him, and when 
Temptation overwhelms thee, dearest, oh then 
Reach for my hand, my Leoine. 


IOO 


SILVFK RIFTS. 


MORNING GLORIES. 

In purple robes and gowns of white, 

Or pink, like flames of lustrous dawn; 
Fresh from the coaling arms of night, 
These gorgeous tints of bloom are drawn; 
Then at the first hot glare of sun, 

Their bloom is gone, their course is run. 
How like our flowers that droop and die 
When noonday’s blast leaps from the sky, 
The gifted young who at our side, 

In bloom, have been our hope and pride; 
And then, like morning glories fair, 

Are gathered to God’s great somewhere. 


TO EUGENE FIELD. 

Soft be thy sleep in cradles pillowed o’er 
With down, thy pen has wove and spun. 
Sweet be the echoes on that unknown shore 
Of those loved lullabys we have but begun 
To learn and love their sweetness more 
As time doth lend its halo to thy name 
And weave its garlands round thy fame. 

Sing baby voices his lullabys o’er 
Wafting them sweetly to evermore’s shore. 
Sing loving mothers of little boy blue; 

No fairer tribute than this can you strew, 
No grander monument rear to his praise 
Than the lullaby notes he sang in his lays. 



fireside poems. 


ioi 


TO A BUNCH OF ROSES. 

So fair they lay before me, 

So rich in tinted hue, 

The perfumed spell comes o’er me. 

A dream that once I knew, 

Roses, just such tinted roses 
Were clustered in her hair, 

Roses, just such tinted roses, 

On cheeks so regal fair, 

Eyes, ah, now the curtain closes, 

They were in anger then, 

Flashing defiance, when 
In vain was my prayer. 

All withered now they lay before me, 
Fragrant were they yesterday. 

Still a perfumed spell comes o’er me, 
They were love gems yesterday. 

Roses, just such tinted roses 
Laid I fondly at her feet; 

Roses, just such tinted roses, 

Could she fail the flowers to greet? 
Eyes, ah yes, they rested on them. 
Love was stronger than the will 
And she, stooping tender, raised them 
Whispering, yes, I love you still. 

Roses, just such tinted roses, 

How I love those fragrant flowers; 

For a bunch of just such roses 
Gave to life its sweetest hours. 


102 


SILVER RIFTS. 


ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. 

I asked myself a question, how vast its import seemed 

I did not think the answer fair on the surface gleamed, 

But there in reach the simple pearl in sunshine glitters 
lay 

Around about my answer not darkness but fair day. 

And so it is with many hearts that ponder not in vain 

Hard struggling with the question and opposition flame, 

Forgetful that the answer in other quarters lie 

Not down in unsought realms, but there where sun¬ 
beams vie. 

Not most in far off zones of thought the knowledge 
seek, 

But here from other struggling hearts the answer sure 
will leak; 

’Tis here where other troubled lives have grasped and 
fought and found 

We, too, must seek the answer to questions we pro¬ 
pound. 

We see good men and earnest, seeking to raise their 
race, 

While missing at their hearthstone fires, is the kindly 
face. 

The cheer the love the brightest gems are given to the 
mass, 

While hungry by home’s altar fires love’s gaunt spec¬ 
tres pass. 

’Tis better round the circle of the dear ones at home 

To scatter little gems of love they will take wings and 
roam 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


103 


Among the homes of other men, the impulse be it small 

Will pass along its silent warmt'h a spark that reaches 
all. 

*Tis round the hearthstone cheerful fire that cradle song 
is sung, 

And there is reared the childish dream of the coming 
throng; 

’Tis there they learn of kindness, or in silence, neglect 

’Tis there t he passions smother or learn to stand erect. 

*Tis there they ask their questions and vast to them they 
seem, 

Will you but lay the answer upon the surface gleam? 

'As there in reach the simple pearl in sunshine glitters 
lay 

Around about your answer, not darkness, but fair day. 


THE ANGEL OF THE HOUSE. 

“The angel of the house has gone,” she said, 

With tear-filled eye and drooping grief-poised head. 
I pictured as she spoke a plump-faced child, 

With eyes of dreamy blue, so soft and mild. 

Or else it be a maid of winsome grace, 

I dreamed of sweet Madonna, saint like face. 



104 


SILVER RIFTS. 


‘‘The angel of the house has gone,” she said. 

How great is grief when child or maid be dead; 

And then, I asked if it were child or maid. 

“Ah, no! ’Twas neither child or maid,” she said. 
Her voice was soft as strove grim grief to smother, 
“Ah, no! ’Twas she, my patient angel mother.” 

And then I, silent, sadly bowed my head, 

The angel of the house indeed was dead. 

Dream not of smiles from captious beauties’ faces. 
Dream not of lurking maiden wiles and graces; 

These but enamor, but a mother’s name 
Will oft times quench the fire of lusty flame. 

The angel of the house has passed away, 

When mother’s voice no longer sweet can say, 

“Be true; I prayed full many years for thee, 

That truth may fill thy sails or life’s wild sea.” 

Oh, tell me not the name of maid can hover 
So close as does this hallowed name of mother. 

Oh, angels pure, I dream that high above, 

Each fluttering wing is but the flame of love 
That fanned a fire around a mother’s breast, 

And san'k in peace at last within to rest. 

I spurn, I loathe, he of such deep shame 
As loveth not a worthy mother’s name. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


105 


COTTAGE BROWN AND MOTHER. 

There’s a cottage brown to the roadway nigh 
Where a meek-eyed mother sits, 

And two merry children play hard by 
Where the green and gold in nature lie, 

While the watchful mother knits. 

There is ne’er a day of bright sun gleams 
That the ripples of laughter fail, 

And the bubbling, happy, childish dreams 
Seem a fitting part of the day’s fair beams, 

In the eyes of the mother pale. 

Oh fair little babes with heads curly brown, 

The sweet days of childhood are fleeting, 

And the world waits without with snarl and frown, 
And full many a thorn to weave as a crown, 

And a cold pass-bye for a greeting. 

And your thoughts will linger with sacred love, 
Round the brown little cottage of home, 

And the pale sweet mother so patient in love, 

Who is wreathing roses in gardens above, 

While her dear little babies roam. 

She is dropping a flower o’er a dreary way 

That may frowning lie where her darlings tread, 
For the wide world through they still hear her say, 
“Be loving and kind at work or play.” 

And the spirit lives though the mother be dead, 
For the children remember those words she said. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


APART. 

The rain drops clatter and the chill winds hurl 
A canting moan through weeping night; 

No beacon rays the vast black skies unfurl; 

Each gust is laden with the freakful whirl 
Of wind and rain’s capricious flight. 

And far from me, the faces I most love 
Seem smiling with a welcome fair; 

I gaze into tlie blackened dome above, 

The denseness of the shroud my yearnings move, 
And discord turns to evening prayer. 

I would not change thee, night of sobs and sighs; 
God draws me to Him as I roam 
And has ordained thee, saddened voice that cries, 
In nature and in all our human ties, 

To bind us closer to our home. 


LITTLE BOY BLINKING. 

Little boy blinking 
In cradle of down. 

While baby is winking 
We swing up and down; 

Baby boy, baby boy, upward you go. 
Baby boy, baby boy, now downward so. 
Just as the wave rocks 
When breezes do blow, 

Swing baby boy, baby boy, 

Soft to and fro. 



FIRESIDE POEMS. 


107 


Little boy rosy, 

With head curly brown, 

Mid pillows so cozy 
We swing up and down; 

Baby boy, baby boy, upward you go. 
Baby boy, baby boy, now downward so, 
Now close your eyes softly, 

Don’t blink any more, 

And angels will waft you 
To lullaby shore. 

Baby boy dreaming, 

Some angel is near, 

And mamma love leaning, 

Oh why should you fear; 

Baby boy, baby boy, upward you go. 
Baby boy, baby boy, now downward so, 
Just as the wave rocks 
When breezes do blow, 

Swing baby boy, baby boy, 

Soft to and fro. 


io8 


SILVER RIFTS. 


AN AUTUMN LOVE SONG. 

Trooping along the hill-side, 

The autumn leaves burn red, 

And to your cheek my darling bride 
The sumac tints have fled. 

The air is crisp, the fragrant scents 
Out-reach from clustered vines, 

Where leaves uphold the frost king prints 
Like hues of amber wines. 

There’s dreamy love-light in your eyes 
As ling’ring here content 

We watch the hazes in' the skies 

Lean ’gainst God’s battlements. 

How chatter noisy sparrows 
On village hills adown? 

A few bare rows on the hedge-rows 
Are bent with their bodies brown. 

The shrill call down the valley 
Is from the plumaged jay; 

The thrush sings Autumn’s rally 
From jubilant notes of May. 

Ah, love! This life is Autumn time, 
When love-fires shimmer red 

And lips glow warm like ruby prime 
On hill-tops just ahead. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


IO9 


YEARNINGS. 

Dear love, when all my soul reached out to thee 
It filled my life with such a peace divine, 

That when death’s angel took thy form from me, 

I craved and prayed for some sweet lover sign 
To reach from out the vast, blue pulseless sky, 

That I might anchor all my hopes thereby. 

No sign has come. Those dreamy skies but cluster 
So blue around the home where thou hast fled. 
The stately sun still rides in golden lustre, 

’Mid morning’s gray or mellow sunset’s red; 

But I have grasped, from whence I cannot tell, 

An echo, pure and sweet as vesper bell. 

Close to my heart thy presence still I feel— 

All that thou wast is with me loving still— 
And I can only clasp, and while I kneel, 

Dream of the hour when time must sure fulfill, 
Hopes that this life has left so incomplete, 

When soul to soul, we in God’s fulness meet. 


MOTHER’S LOVE. 

She may have faults in other’s eyes, 
Some say she has, I’ve heard, 

She may be plain, that’s no surprise; 
Plain act and simple word. 

Why friend, a world cara understand 
The pressure of a mother’s hand. 



IIO 


SILVER RIFTS. 


I know some mother’s go astray 
As error webs them in, 

In many wrong and sinful way, 

As women they may sin, 

But hold, don’t curse, just stop and smoth’r 
That thought, don’t speak a word ’gainst mother. 

Whatever be her greatest sin 
Know this for love of you, 

She’d face a lion in his den, 

For mother’s love is true, 

And if she stumbles, in her fall 
Don’t idle stand at mother’s call. 

All of our God a soul can hold 
All love that flesh can keep, 

Is there when mother’s love doth fold 
Her baby in its sleep, 

And can there be on earth more bliss 
Than rapture of a mother’s kiss. 

This old gray world is full of wrong 
And mothers are but flesh like we, 

And in this simple homely song 
I’ll pass each human fraility, 

And sing alone of mother’s love, 

For it reflects the God above. 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


II 


NEW YEAR BELLS. 

The moon is bright in the starlit sky, 

The night is still and cold; 

The bells ring deep from church towers nigh, 
As they did in days of old; 

They set me sweetly dreaming, 

Yes, sweetly and sadly, too; 

For the light through my window streaming, 
Falls fair on a past loved view. 

My locks are white as the moonbeams, 

Like drifts of the old year’s snow; 

Yet hers I know have golden gleams. 

As they did long years ago. 

It seems I feel the curls of gold, 

But no, she long is dead; 

I heard the knells in the church tower old 
Greet New Year’s as she fled. 

Ring, glad sweet bells, not sad sweet bells, 
The year new-born to-night 

Scores one more step with chiming knell, 

To where I would see the light 

Stream softly from her love-lit eyes, 

From some sweet niche beyond the skies,. 

And then when New Year bells ring gay,. 

Her hand in mine again I’ll lay. 


112 


SILVER RIFTS. 


MY FIRESIDE PANTOMIME. 

In the lustre and rays of the lamplight 
With the fire-place flaming red; 

When the curtained windows leave the night 
And the biting gusts of winter’s might, 

To the world above my head. 

It is cheer to sit near the merry rage 
Of the flickering fire of home, 

With your pipe afull, your room for a stage, 
And a troupe of actors your wits to engage, 
As the smoky phantoms roam. 

’Tis a puff of smoke, a fanciful curl 
Like the rim of a fleece lined cloud, 

And the scene is a troupe in merry whirl, 

Or the ravishing step of a ballet girl, 

Or the grace of a princess proud. 

’Tis a puff of smoke and a stately brow, 

With the halo soft of a saint, 

And a choir of angels are lingering now, 

And a troupe of white robed martyrs bow. 
Could an artist my heaven paint. 

There’s a maiden fair just reared from a cloud, 
Like a seraph in earth’s fair dome, 

And the pale hued heavens now enshroud, 

And a host of fairies push and crowd, 

As they scatter and skyward roam. 

’Tis a puff of smoke and my heart beats fast 
As my vision so fair unfolds, 


FIRESIDE POEMS. 


I 


And a pure sweet face comes floating past, 

’Tis my heart’s ideal I have found at last, 

In the hush of my fancy bold. 

And an aged form with locks of gray 

Comes brushing and blowing my fairy away, 
And I puff to replenish my fairy mould, 

But, alas! the weed in my pipe is cold, 

And a cloud has lifted my fairy to stay. 


04 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Sor^s of tl?e Soutlp. 


IN SYLVAN SHADES. 

I wandered ’neath the sighing bowers, 

Sweet were the scents the recent showers 
Had shook from hosts of fragrant flowers; 

The river and the brook here met 
And like a glowing coronet 
The ripples seemed with jewels set. 

The cattle in the sunlight basked, 

The cane stalks were with helmets masked 
And crows their caw, caw, questions asked. 

The grape vines ’round the tree trunks ’twined 
Like serpents when they crush and bind 
Their victims in their fatal wind 

The oak trees ’rose from out the dell, 

The squirrel scampered off pell-mell, 

While ’round about me acorns fell. 

The silken garments of the trees 
Were rustled softly by the breeze, 

So soft, it set my heart at ease; 

Forgetful of the world’s mad rush 
I marveled at the woods fair flush, 

And dreamed amid the soothing hush. 

Oh, beautious world so grandly wrought, 
One form alone with peace has fought, 

Man, with his selfish passions fraught. 



SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


THE SOUTHERN OAK. 

Arms that lift the burnished bowers 
Where the streaming mosses cling, 
Like a garland of frail flowers 
Which the breezes deftly swing; 

Year by year, thy gathered sheaves 
Cling among the summer leaves; 
Winter winds thy arms would bare, 

Yet we find still clinging there, 
Woven warm, a mossy cloak 

O’er thy form, O Southern Oak. 

Year by year, grim Time is pressing 
O’er thy face a flowing mane; 

Aged monarch, thou art blessing 
Fields of cotton and of cane; 

For it seems thy raised arms tattered 

Round about the earth have scattered 
Beards to cotton and a mane 
To the nodding sugar-cane, 

Till they wear a mossy cloak 

Like the spreading Southern Oak. 


n6 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


A COZY NOOK. 

On a hill that looms high where a fair river flows 
And shimmering winds through canon and lea, 
There’s a dear shady spot where the rife grape vine 
grows 

And forms in it’s wind such a cozy settee. 

I have sat in its bend when the soft Southern breeze 
Fanned ’round me the balm of invisible wings, 

And a lullaby cadence was hummed in the trees, 
Each leaf seemed a busy and gay little thing. 

Of’t a mocking bird carrolled his snatches of song 
To forests, assembled his solo to hear; 

While the wind shook applause from the bower crowned 
throng 

And the crow harshly called like a bold overseer. 

Overhead Spanish moses like tassels were strung 
’Round the canopied green of the noble live oak. 
And it seemed as if fairies quaint laces had flung, 

To form a fair bower their queen to invoke. 

’Mid the maize of the mosses my troubles I ’twined, 
And it seemed that they clung to a scarred twisted 
limb, 

As around them the grape vine did forceably wind 
To bind them securely. How pleasant this whim! 

Yet I’m sure if we mortals would only endulge 

In the beauties that Nature has scattered o’er earth, 
We would find that her fancies most quaint she’d 
divulge, 

And often change sorrow to pleasure and mirth. 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


117 


THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO. 

Over the hills and up from the river, 

What was that flash, shimmer and quiver? 
The sun beats down on a glittering train 
That swept the breast of our Texan plain. 
’Twas Santa Anna with Mexico’s pride, 
With steady tread and insolent stride. 
Commanding his men to the plaza fair, 

To hault them an army strong and rare. 
And from old San Fernando’s tower 
Fling bold the flag of the despot’s power. 

Swift went the news to th-e Alamo. 
Crockett and Travis there must know 
That every foot of their chosen ground 
Mexican bayonets soon would surround. 
Surrender! came from the tyrant proud. 

A mighty silence; then deep and loud 
From cannon’s mouth the answer came 
With roar and crash, and a burst of flame. 
The gallant band not two hundred strong, 
Would battle with Mexico’s mighty throng. 

Ghostly the Alamo’s aged brow, 

The smoke of the siege did grim imbow; 
Cannon had burst and bullet had blared, 
And rocket and bomb had rushed and glared. 
For ten long days the gallant band 
Had held at bay the tyrant’s command. 
Charge after charge had proved all in vain, 
Though bullets fell like falling rain. 

They were foresworn to do or die, 

No matter how thick the bullets fly. 


ii8 


SILVER RIFTS. 


“The Alamo fort must fall to-day,” 

Proud Santa Anna was heard to say. 

And then the army great and strong, 

With hellish yell were rushed headlong 
Upon the starved, yet heroic band, 

Of Crockett and Travis’ weak command 
Nobly they fought and fearlessly fell! 

Round them raged a Mexican hell, 

As one by one death laid them low, 

Each at his post struck a last blow. 

Over the Alamo, scarred and gray, 

Did Santa Anna his colors display. 

But every man he would capture fain, 

Lay at his post for Liberty slain. 

A noble victor would bare his head, 

And sacredly bury such valient dead; 

But he let the dark page covered be, 

For tyrants must learn full bitterly 
That every deed that’s dark and foul 
Will strike retribution to their soul. 

“Remember the Alamo!” rose from the flames 
“‘Remember Travis and Crocklet’s names.” 
From every post on the Texan plains, 

A foeman sprung to avenge the stains. 
“Remember the Alamo,” their battle cry, 

Was sounded where thick the bullets fly. 

As Santa Anna’s colors fell, 

Rang in his ears the fateful knell— 
“Remember the Alamo;” how he cringed; 
Thus Travis and Crockett were avenged. 

Over the Alamo’s hallowed brow, 

Liberty’s ensign is floating now, 

Soft to and fro in the Southern breeze, 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


119 


Valor and Freedom in every crease. 

Flag of the patriot, flag of the free, 

Most noble ensign of Liberty. 

Never was battle more valiently fought; 
Never was Freedom more dearly bought, 
Than here ’neath the Alamo’s time-seared walls. 
Where proudly thy colors rise and fall. 


VENDETTA—A POEM OF THE COLORADO. 

I. 

Beside the Colorado, in Dixie land, 

Where rambles hillward cotton field and cane, 

And live oaks rise their scaled and twisted arms, 
Like pythons huge, transfixed mid bearded moss; 
Whose flowing manes, gray grown from lapse of years, 
Leave bare the wrinkles of each time seared brow. 
The shell rocks cluster at the ford. Past eons 
Once saw the Gulf recede and salt sea shells 
Sink into sea slime like Deucalion deluge, 

Till Medust’s leaden gave transfixed to stone. 

The river ran like Styx and Acheron, 

To vomit all its burdens in the sea. 

When from the breast of Dixie, the cool springs 
Emptied their crystal cups, and sunbeams sifted 
The murky dross till argent with shimmer 
The river ran like opal to the sea. 

Pomona and Pales camped on the banks 



120 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Where pale shells glistened and the milk-weed 
Sprung from each spot. Where the shepherd goddess 
struck 

Her staff. ’Twas then the mocking bird (bill then a 
sloth) 

First heard the song that Bachus sung, 

While revelling with Pales. Straightway his beak 
He lifted to the skies, and then there burst 
Upon the stillness such wild sweet notes 
That Bachus, in a burst of wrath that he, 

A bird uncouth, should imitate his strain, 

Straightway slit his tongue and willed that henceforth he 
Should vainly strive to sing the dulcet tune, 

And mock like fool before a king that which 
Henceforth it be his luckless lot to hear. 

Pomona enchanted with the one sweet strain, 

That first this bird from Bachus’ love notes sang. 
Decreed than hence the homely buzzard float, 
Searching the blue heavens, and finding, bring 
To her this wondrous bird of sweetest song. 

Since has the mocking bird sung his vain strife 
For Bachalean melody and still 
The seeking buzzard floats in watchful search 
For that immortal song Pomona loved. 

II. 

Beside the Colodado, in Dixie land, 

Close to a ford where shell rocks scattered lie, 

A rambling cottage nestles deep mid green 
Of live oak, and the glossed pecan; the cypress 
And morning glory creep and twine in rife 
Disorder covering the scars of ruin, 

Bombard of battling years, bursted shells, the wind, 
Crevice of warp, knawed dottenness of age. 

Worm sponged, the eaves do sag and stoop beneath 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


I 21 


A load of years. Or is thy heavy head 
Bending to reach the emptiness of ruin, 

The voiceless room, the flameless hearth, and looms 
Of silence where the noiseless spiders weave. 

The cricket chirps, where once was sung the lullaby. 
The rabbits now romp where babies crept, 

For here in early days, before the fair 
Lone star was blazaned on the banner dear, 

That dauntless valor won from tyrany, 

A fearless settler, with his wife and babes, 

•Hued from the forest oaks the sylvan home. 

And free, a king, his throne his domicile, 

The woods a burst of song, the dulcet stream 
And voice of prattling babes his kingdom dear. 

A king might vaunt a province for far less fair. 

Oft redman ravaged kingdoms fair as this, 

With furies worse than cannon’s mouth in war; 

The slow approach of death, when quivering flesh 
Calls madly for the fatal stroke to end. 

Hell hath no vomit like a redman’s mind, 

When means of torture he would fain devise. 

And now, upon this peace (nob stiller was the night 
At Bethlehem, when cherubs sang their song of peace), 
As sly fox in stealth, 

Creeps to his victim, so did the redman 
Crouch and crawl; and then like hissing snakes did 
The flinted arrows fly, and tear, and snarl, 

Through windows, baring the settlers to furies 
Far worse than dreaded Demogorgon hate. 

One painted savage thrust his head within; 

Click! and a bullet found a redman’s breast. 

Click! click! the musket spits its leaden balls; 

At every sound a redman’s doom is sealed. 

His wife and babes the settler must defend. 

Oh, God! A flinted arrow flies and seeks 


122 


SILVER RIFTS. 


And finds his first born baby’s heart. Click! click! 
He has not time for tears; fast fly the arrows, 

And fast the bullets fly. Alas! his baby, too, 

Lies dead upon its mother’s breast, and she, 

With frenzied grief kisses the pale dead lips; 

As pale as hers soon were, for swift the next 
Bold arrow found and crashed into her heart, 

And laid her pulseless with the babes at rest. 

Now barked the musket, with a fatal aim, 

Vengeance and hate, the bullets straight propelled. 
Each time a bullet flew a redman fell. 

The man within, from loophole and barricade, 

Dealt with dire vengeance, death, relentless death! 
Then, silence—deeper than death—more vast than night. 
The redmen had given up the seige in flight. 

A score of painted bodies, grim and ghast, 

And brutal in their last fierce look of hate, 

Were left as booty for a ruined home. 

Yon oak stands barren when the looting storm 
Strips it of all save gaunt the shattered trunk; 

So stood this settler round his ruined branches— 

All! all was gone! All save a vengeance vast, 

And dire as hell is to eternity. 

III. 

Vendetta! An oath that ever cuts the heart, 

An airm that ever strikes the naked part. 

Vast hate begetting ire that rises like 
Minerva from the head of Jupiter. 

To ever wage, with wise craft relentless war. 

Such was the oath this settler solemn vowed. 
Redskins’ blood, skulls foi^ buzzards. Vendetta! 

And soon among the mountains, on the plain, 

His musket dealt its ready pill of death. 

“Vendetta!” the Mexican cried, and stood 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


123 


Aside while he passed on always on bent 
Of Indian blood. Texas sore needed such 
As he. For oft she battled with the red 
Commanche and Apache, and 
These had felt the evnom of Vendetta’s pledge, 

And learned to fear and cower at the name 
Vendetta. Silent as night, secret as the grave, 

Like lightning, come and gone. Yet always 
In his track, the redskins fell, their grinning 
Faces to the earth. “Vendetta,” they cry, 

And fly in supertitious awe. For where 
He moves, death stalks and follows in. his track, 

And dry bones attest his presence 

With their stench to heaven. Then, silent as tiger, 

In deep of jungle he disappears. 

Vendetta! ’Twas the like of he that pushed 
The redman from our Texan soil, and bound 
With reservation stakes his life; and when 
Their blood thirsted for war, and the tomahawk 
Was sharpened for dire work, ’twas such as he 
That marked their passagke with their blood; 

Till tame and humble they resumed their bounds. 
Vendetta! Age had stooped his shoulders, 

And his locks like snow drifts banked his brow. 
Slow were his returning steps. Like to the grave, 
He wandered back to his cabin home of yore, 

Beside the Colorado in Dixie land. 

How changed was now the face of mother earth. 
Where once the forest and the waste land stood, 
Grouped now the cotton, flaunted the cane; 

Where thrift had hived its lessons in homes of men. 
Cities and hamlets had gathered round 
The nucleus that his sturdy arm had formed. 

The cabin still stood, as stands it now; 

A ruin noble in its slow decay. 


124 


SILVER RIFTS. 


No stones were reared above the graves of them 
That he had loved and for had fought a long revenge. 
He joined them in their silent sleep of peace. 

No marble shaft is seared to mark the spot 
Where he had fought to pave for us the way 
Of glorious destiny and wondrous fate. 

No stone was wished by such as he; he loved 
Adventure and the wild free life, and now 
At rest, beneath the twisting oak to dream 
Of days before the redman’s ire had changed 
The hope of life to foul revenge. Vendetta! 

And yet methinks, through hate his life had filled. 
God used him as a marksman whose steady aim 
Helped ope for us a province in the Lone Star State. 


THE BUZZARD. 

Tireless, there floats through Southern skies 
A fearless navigator bold, 

Tired of earth’s dross, the buzzard flies, 
Searching the forest and the wold; 
Propelled it seems by bold desire, 

Glazing God’s outer spheres and higher, 
Into the vast expanse, the blue 
Of heavens’ first great avenue. 



SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


125 


What dost thou see on outstretched wings? 

Perhaps the mis’ry earth unfolds, 

Tires thee of all earth’s trifling things 
And closer to the heaven holds; 

Or dost thou hear the dulcet strain, 

God’s mellow harmoines of song, 

And learn to soar as angels fain, 

Do wing God’s ether spheres along. 

Methinks that from thy high estate, 

God showed thee earth, a charnal-house. 
Since then thou dost annihilate 

Decay of flesh and glut and souse, 

That man be free from sickly scent, 

The azure skies to only leave 
To battle with flesh pestilent, 

God work of pity to conceive. 

Float through our dreamy, Southern skies 
We know thee as a watchful friend 
Nearer thou art to Paradise, 

My thoughts with thee would fain ascend, 
Glazing God’9 outer spheres and higher, 

Into the vast expanse of blue, 

Up to the argent, hallowed fire, 

Of heaven’s first bright aevnue. 


126 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE HEROINE OF BOLIVAR. 

OR 

THE MOTHER OF TEXAS. 

Dedicated to the Memory of Mrs. Gen. Long. 

Bold reared, forbidding in its wild decree 
Point Bolivar o’er looks the Southern Sea. 

The white waves hugged with the winding shore, 

An island beach that girts a verdant core. 

Sea gull and pelican wing bold their flight 
Where broad the gulf expands a chrysolite. 

No friendly human form did here abound. 

Wild passions throbbed the wilderness around. 

The fierce Carancahua savage bent 
Like Lafitte the pirate, came and went. 

Wild Bolivar, sad prophetess and lone, 

Freedom’s decree will fair thy brow enthrone, 

And write her first loved lines on Texas’ scroll 
To breathe a destiny into her soul. 

Ar uncouth fort, rude clapped upon thy brow, 

The vanguard which bold progress did endow. 

Here when the burning spirit moved her breast, 

The patriot long left wife and babe to rest, 

’Till he should come a victor back again 
And Texas would unloose the yoke of Spain. 

What sacrifice was this at Freedom’s shrine 
Could aught be greater in a heroine? 

Martyrs have suffered tortures for a day, 

Before them heaven shed its hallowed ray; 

Eternity, faith, gilded and sublime, 

Joy frenzied saw they paradise’s first prime. 

But she was doomed through baneful waste of years, 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


127 


To watch and pray and quell her gnawing fears. 

Naught to console in silence did she weep, 

While evei wailed around the restless deep. 

Of: gaunt starvation rankled at her door, 

Her babe grew wan and food did oft implore; 

And buc for Kian, black face, but white of heart, 
Grim hunger must have crushed them with its smart. 

Ships like fair saviors oft her prison passed 
Bearing release imblazaned on each mast. 

Release and conduct to her girlhood home; 

Years might her husband war-way roam. 

She pressed her babe still closer to her breast; 

The ships passed on, their white wings eastward pressed. 
‘T will await; he surely will return; 

For husband and Freedom this boon I spurn.” 

Lone “Mother of Texas,” couldst thou but see, 

The tears thou spilt, glow pearls of destiny. 

The barren isle that often heard thee moan, 

Grow rife with lustrous beauty like thine own. 

Thy sighs turned stone and temples reared therefrom,. 
Where trade and commerce reach to Christendom. 
Thy tears take wings and after years of flight, 

Come back as white winged ships thee to requite. 
Thy charity bloomed while Cape Jasmine flowers 
I fancy took root and did invoke, 

Till spring majestic, strong, those bold live oaks. 
And all enshrined on Galveston’s fair isle, 

Turn to Point Bolivar their happy smile. 

Sails, sails, sails, they came and disappeared. 

They bare no news of him whose fate she feared. 
They came and went, as did the dragging years 
Whose days were beads, her rosary of tears. 

Devotion years, such as she did endure 


128 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Is martyrdom; and a page most pure 

The mothers and wives of Texas should enshrine, 

The patient lesson of a faith devine. 

Oh wives, have ye to suffer more than ye had thought, 
Be true, be true; love is a pearl that’s dearly bought 
High, high it reaches to our end, our heaven; 

On earth it must be mixed with earthly heaevn. 

When came the tidings, as all tidings come, 

Her watch in vain, its end the tale dolesome. 

The pinion of her faith waved now no more; 

Its colors fell upon Mexico’s shore. 

True to her lord and land he would defend, 

She cast her lot thereon, unto the end; 

And from the ashes of buried hopes she saw 
From chaos of disorder raise the law. 

For Freedom came, and with it fair endowed 
Progress and art, the thrift that makes states proud. 

No more the echo of the redman’s rant 
Rings mocking with its hate intolerant. 

Wild sons of scenes as wild, unkept, as they 
From wild to wild industry vaunts its sway. 

And rabid they rebel, contrive, defy; 

Then pass in numbers less they must comply. 

Sad remnant of a doomed and hunted race! 

They must pass on that higher forms replace. 

When settlers shall absorb our Western plains 
No redmen shall exist to test their claims. 

Where Waco’s foremost village was outspread, 

A mart of trade has reared its courtly head. 

Where Comanche spread desolation 1 round, 

Section on section of fruitful well tilled ground, 
Teems with the cotton spread like balls of snow. 

Or flaunts the bearded cane where tassel flow. 


SONGS OF THE SOUTH. 


129 


Cypress and balsam twine the homes around; 

And flowers, fairest flowers, doth abound. 

A garland, pluck the choicest and entwine 
The “Mother of Texas” to enshrine. 

Model of all that faithful wifely grace, 

That makes our womankind first of our race. 

And thou, O island city, the Southern Sea 
Flings balm and commerce bountiful to thee. 

As murmurs soft each slow incoming tide, 

Fair cargoes to thy top doth stately glide 
Point Bolivar, thy guardsman bold above, 

Mate thrilling tale, devotion, faith and love. 

Rich is the land when heroism is prized; 

With heroes man first mythologized. 

And thus led step by step up to their God. 

Alas the heroes, they who arduous plod, 

Through daily suffering to a high degree, 

Bearing each bitter brunt that man be free, 

These are overlooked, while they that light a flame, 
Mount with its leap the pedestal of fame. 

Heroes they were full blown, but for a day; 

One mighty stroke and prowess held full sway. 

But they who suffer, and patient bear fierce ills, 

For those they love to bear fierce rending thrills, 
Honored be they, and high, high above, 

The God will bless thee, highest phase of love. 

Lone points the heights of verdant Bolivar; 

Lone, like the sturdiness of our lone star, 

The “Mother of Texas,” my tale is told— 

Devotion, faith and love are purest gold. 


130 


SILVER RIFTS. 


patriot^. 


IN THE WAKE OF THE FLAG. 

Out on the wide, wide ocean’s crest 
Our country’s ships are there; 

The Stars and Stripes the masts abreast 
Are waving dear and fair. 

In the wake of the flag where surges foam,. 
New goddesses uprear, 

And firmly clasp each island home 
As liberties appear. 

The Spanish hand, long red with blood, 
Unclasps the golden West; 

Our mighty western brotherhood 
For freedom stands confessed. 

Far in the restless China sea, 

Where rants the mad typhoon, 

Strange races learn of liberty 
From freemen’s bravery. 

Out from the wreck of Spanish wrongs, 
Torture and grim despair, 

Like spectres, pass and drop their thongs. 
Stifled by freedom’s air. 

Pale from their long imprisonment 
The island queens emerge, 

Oh, haste! ye unchained goddesses 
Your island homes to purge. 



PATRIOTISM. 


131 


A world looks on and eager asks: 

Are ye fit to be free? 

Lift! lift the burden of your tasks 
And march now cheerily. 

Thy colors flaunt, whate’er they be 
Sing loud of liberty, 

Work with a will right heartily, 

And teach how grand ’tis to be free. 


MEMORIAL DAY. 

Plant the starry flag on the graves of our hero dead, 

Scatter the fragrant flow’rs of May o’er their hallowed 
bed. 

Here, where tulips bloom and the climbing ivies creep, 

Honored, loved and lost, our nation’s staunchest heroes 
sleep. 

Sing our fathers’ cherished song, Freedom’s proudest 
hymn, 

Soft arid sweet the blending notes, death’s harvest 
scarce seems grim; 

Pure as mellow mingling of this day ’twixt May and 
June, 

Flowers of a nation’s love are twined around your 
tombs. 



132 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Sleep on! faithful followers of our troubled conflict 
hours, 

Years will deck your graves with vines and fragrant 
flowers. 

Grateful hearts and loyal hands will marble columns 
raise; 

Music strains and willing tongues recount your worthy 
praise. 

Fierce, the storms have rent our peerless flag in con¬ 
flict’s breeze, 

Clashing arms have huried their echoes o’er the rest¬ 
less seas, 

Loyal hearts have crushed the discord of the battle 
sounds, 

Loyal hands will wreathe with constant love their sac¬ 
red mounds. 

Reared o’er your forms Freedom’s starry emblem proud¬ 
ly waves, 

Choicest flowers of fruitful spring enshrine your graves, 

Rest where tulips bloom and the climbing ivies creep, 

Brave and honored, loved and lost, Columbia’s heroes 
—sleep! 


PATRIOTISM. 


THE SCHOOL-HOUSE AND THE FLAG. 
Proudly o’er tKe village school-house 
From the flag-staff floats the flag, 

All day long the busy breezes 
'Swift unfurl or playful lag. 

Baby eyes and eyes more thoughtful, 

Learn the tale that round it lurks, 

Learn to sing the songs of Freedom, 

Learn that duty never shirks. 

Oh Columbia, our country! 

Lest thy hopes and glories lag, 
Through .the coming countless ages 
From the school-house float the flag. 

Battles fought and war thats ended, 
Victories on land and sea, 

War that is, all, all, are blended 
In thy wreath, oh Liberty; 

We are but the passing atoms 

Gathered in thy concrete mass, 

Minds that hand thy priceless lessons 
To the next oncoming class. 

Though our charge we’re false to madness 
If we only strut and brag, 

And above the schools that nourish, 

Fail to float our country’s flag. 


FREEDOM. 

Raising the torch of liberty’s gleam, 
Kissed by two' ocean’s amorous lips, 
Proudly the Dame of Freedom sits 
In the wide expanse between. 



134 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Wide she has scattered Freedom's grain 
In the breath of the willing wind— 

Her sons o’er valley, prairie, plain, 

Now joyfully gather it in. 

From rugged coast of wintry Maine 
To Florida’s bosom of flowers; 

From Arizona’s sterile plains 

To Washington, land of showers; 

From treeless plains that shadeless thirst. 
To lands of copious ram; 

From Eastern smoky marts of trade 
To prairie fields of golden grain; 

From dreary clime, the Golden State, 

To the banks of the Rio Grande, 

And belt of cotton, corn a*id grape 
And the cloudless. Summer land. 

With mighty sound a sweet refrain, 
From countless kings a prayer; 

From loyal hearts the halowed name 
Of Freedom rends the air. 


PATRIOTISM. 


135 


DECORATION DAY. 

Across this freeman’s land of ours 
Let freedom’s song be sung to-day, 

Among the graces where heroes lay; 

Scatter the fragrant flowers, 

Garlands rich from burnished bowers, 
Smilax and myrtle tender cling 
Through all the summer hours, 

To-day some roses red we bring, 

And a flag with magic powers. 

A starry flag in a field of blue, 

A rich red stripe and a white one too. 

Oh, heroes! Sleeping ’neath the bowers, 
Whose graevs we strew with tinted flowers, 
Hark to song bursts ebb and swell, 

Here is not death by shot and shell, 

Here is victory, triumphs’ train, 

Thy tombstones’ form the hallowed chain 
That binds the despot’s power. 

Oh, heroes! resting ’neath verdant graves 
In southern clime; how many slaves 
Have weary dropped life’s burden down 
In cotton field, and busy town; 

’Till the potent force thy salient blow 
Made a nation’s pulse beat fast, and oh! 
What peace with the starry flag unfurled 
To rest with thy flag above thy head, 

In the flower strewn grave of our hero dead. 

Scatter the fragrant flowers 
Garlands rich from burnished bowers. 


136 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Smilax and myrtle tender cling 
Through all the summer hours; 

To-day some roses red we bring, 

And a song of Freedom’s own we’ll sing. 
For these hero dead of ours. 





PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


137 


pei} pictures of Jtature. 


STRINGS OF NATURE’S LYRE. 

Where great waves wash the rigid base 
Of tall cliffs white and gray, 

And sea gulls flit their airy race 
O’er crest of billow spray; 

Along the strand where white waves lay 
A love kiss soft with foam, 

Then creep in silent ecstacy 

Back to their ocean home; 

Upon the hoary mountain peak 
Where gray clouds flutter by, 

Or lean like weary pilgrims, weak 
From roaming through the sky; 

Along where low-lands cluster ’round 
The green hill’s sloping breast, 

Where flowers weave a tinted crown 
In dells where wood numphs rest; 

In earth’s fair dome where sunshine gleams 
O’er vast domain of day, 

Or in night’s reign of stars and dreams 
When earth in slumbers lay; 

We hear the tuneful measure sweet, 

The strings of Nature’s lyre, 

If we but count love’s heart beats 
’Twill ring the same sweet fire. 



I3« 


SILVER BIFTS. 


BLUE BELLS. 

Hedges cluster in the dells 
Where the blue bells swing, 

Chimes of fragrant merry bells, 

Sweetest flower-toned bells, 

In the May time ring. 

We hear not the swelling call 
From the tiny towers, 

As the blue bells rise and fall, 

Calling Springtime flowers all 
At the matins’ hour. 

Still a hallowed, mellow tone 
Has the blue bells ring, 

When the flowers have richer grown 
All their praise to God is blown, 

When the blue bells swing. 

Dips the crimson bleeding heart, 

When the blue bells ring, 

And 1 the shooting stars fair dart, 

Points to heaven’s brightest part, 

When the blue bells swing. 

In the flower tinted ways, 

Swing the sweet blue bells, 

Through the Springtime scented days, 

Floats the incense of their praise, 

Through the woodland dells 

The blue bells swing and the blue bells ring. 
Evening prayers, sacred airs, 

Swing the bells, flowery bells, 

Through the dales of Spring. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


139 


A MIDSUMMER MORN. 

Red poppies near my window, 

Gay carnations near my door, 

A sky of blue, and on my floor 
The dancing sunbeams skirting o’er. 

Up from the shaven meadow 
Comes the scent of new mown hay, 
Where waving wisps of yesterday 
Are felled and raked in reckless way. 

Out from the spreading pasture 
Sweet the clover breath is blown; 

The lark has pitched his meadow tone 
And sings to all this fragrant zone. 

The lake with sweet pond-lilies 
Is abloom with white and gold; 

Where slender willows lean and hold, 
The chatter of the blackbird bold. 

So fair the morn, yet not complete, 
Though I gaze on skies so fair, 

I think of loves I buried there, 

In depths their vast unknown somewhere. 


140 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE LOVE OF NATURE. 

Come, come with me and I will show a sovereign’s gild¬ 
ed home, 

Rich stained with many mellow tints, where Cassia 
breezes roam. 

Out past the city’s mineret’s, the scent of blooming 
flowers 

Reach out and linger ’neath the green of Nature’s shady 
bowers. 

The tangled bushes firm entwine and leaf the cradles 
o’er 

The well knit nest where song birds sing their lullaby’s 
galore; 

Here cluster April crocuses and bright blue bells in 
May 

And little sunbeam cowslips greet the lilies on your 
way; 

A bubling brooklet laughs and leaps where watercresses 
twine, 

And willows nod their nimble heads where gleaming 
ripples shine. 

The violet loos upward into the sky of blue 

And yearns until its petals frail reflects the heaven’s 
hue. 

A chorus in the bowers sing, it seems alone for you; 

I’m sure that you willl understand this harmony so 
true. 

The hill-top rocks o’er grown with moss, gleams yel¬ 
low in the sun, 

And clinging to their mossy sides, pale shooting-stars 
are spun; 

The squirrel and the chipmonk blithe, twitter and leap 
away; 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


141 

The bluejay flaps his azure wings and calls in his gruff 
way; 

The opulent honey-suckle, you know she must be nigh, 

The breeze is perfume freighted with the escence of 
her sigh; 

A harsh call down the valley from a field of growing 
corn 

Where pirate crows are stealing, while song birds tell 
their scorn. 

The cow bells’ pleasant rattle, the mill' wheels busy ply, 

The dam with flocks of ducks afloat, the peasants’ cot 
near by. 

Come, come with me, and thus enjoy your rightful 
gilded home, 

Rich stained with many mellow tints where Cassia 
breezes roam, 

While choking pall of sorrow’s pain is spread o’er most 
/the world, 

With crepe and dismal shroud of grief their banners 
have unfurled; 

Adversities grim, circumstance, the wiles of usury, 

May crush the light and hearty laugh and pinch to 
penury. 

From cank’rous wants that constant gnaw the fibres of 
the heart 

Ambitions fretful, slyly sift nobility apart, 

And seals our larger joys with tape, whose g&udy, 
scarlet flame, 

Consumes our virtues with a flush and richly clothes 
our shame. 

Oh ye who labor constantly with circumstance of life 

And sweat and sigh and droop amidst the ever jarring 
strife, 


142 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Come, come, and I will show to you a soverign’s gild¬ 
ed home, 

Rich stained with many mellow tints where Cassia 
breezes roam. 

The ruby sun now setting flings crimson, blending 
hues, 

And casts a calcium flush where valley colors fuse. 

Be this thy kingdom, grieving man, no note of discord 
here, 

No lament of the broken heart, no burning, trickling 
tear; 

A voice in every verdant tree, sighs gladsome notes 
to thee, 

With frail beak pointed to the sky they sing God’s 
melody. 

And here where Nature reigns supreme, man> learns a 
lesson sweet, 

That joy we make and peace we win, if these we gladly 
greet; 

The joyful strain/s will float to you and happy thoughts 
come too, 

Like birds and squirrels to the trees, that cooling shad¬ 
ows strew; 

Thy will but offer whole to them and all their magic 
powers 

Will gather in the offered home and light thy heavy 
hours. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


M3 


FLOATING. 

’Neath the willows’ drooping bowers, 

Past the glades where flaunt the flowers, 
Rainbow tints from palette’s green, 

We are floating, you and I. 

Song birds sing from verdant towers, 

Through these fragrant summer hours. 

All the subtle beauties lean, 

Near the whirl of water’s sheen, 

Where we are floating, you and I, 

Floating and dreaming, you and I. 

Drifting clouds bank heaven’s blue, 

Sunlit flashes come shimmering through, 

Kissing and crusting the clay banks brown. 

Past which we float, love, you and I. 

Flaming torches like roses red, 

Casts a blush o’er the mountains’ head, 

Where the ruby sun sinks regal down, 

O’er the waters a burnished crown 
Of argent jewels dance and fly, 

And float the stream like you and' I. 

Glimmering halo’s of bronze and gold 
Crowd obout the church tower old, 

Lighting the cross like a flaming shield 
On the verge of the heavens blue. 

A Caesar’s train seems riding down, 

Sleepy streets of the country town, 

Kissing each blade in the emerald field, 

Where the green and gold seems evermore seal’d;, 
Oh, the sunset rays are grand to view, 

As we float the sylvan stream, we two. 


144 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


MAY. 

Fair garland of the year’s bequest to time, 

Entrancing breath of full blown Spring’s perfume, 

Nature’s flowery poem, heart’s chord rhyme, 

Glad month of chorus song of bird and bloom. 

From feathered, warbling throats the bursts of song 
Rings vast and glad upon thy pregnant breast, 

The bubling brooklet laughs its course along, 

And plowman’s voice is sweet with wild unrest. 

The herds that spread the wide expanse of green, 
Contented brouse, or restful blink in fullest sun; 

All earth is wrapt in Nature’s sunshine dream, 
Forgetful of the hour when day is done. 

Soft balmy days when earth is all a bower 

Of full-blown trees and bud and open flowar; 

When sunshine day is kissed with sunshine shower, 
And earth a willful captive to thy love-bound 
power. 


THE KITTY WILLOW. 

First harbinger of welcome Spring, 
Before the mother crocus blooms, 
Ere yet the first birds chirp or sing, 
The slenddP willow early grooms 
A myriad of fleecy spurs, 

Of down as soft as kitten furs. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


145 


For fear some ling’ring Wintry blast 

May sweep upon thy swaddling leaves, 
A fur lined mantle o’er is cast 

Lkie beards upon the Autumn sheaves, 
While other buds still clothed in red 
Are loathe to peep their downy heads. 

Or like a baby chickie’s wing, 

A bulby little fuzz-like head, 

Where drooping branches soon will swing, 

A canopy, with verdure spread 
And flutter in the vernal breeze 
As busy as a hive of bees. 

And soon the merry birds will come 
To nest amid thy deep spread bowers 
And sing beneath a warmer sun, 

A song of full blown Summer’s hours, 
And one will ling’ring daily sing, 

Kit-willow, kit-willow and swing. 

Kit-willow while building her nest, 
Kit-willow o’er eggs tinted mellow, 
Kit-willow o’er baby bird crest, 

Kit-willow, my home, kit-wilow. 

Sing wee little birds so callow, 
Kit-willow they sing, kit-willow, 

So softly in whisperings hallow, 
Kit-willow, my home, kit-willow. 


146 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE ECHO. 

Down in the valley in sweet days of childhood 
Lived in the woods a queer little man; 

Often I yelled to this man in the wildwood, 
“Hello! Echo! Hello!” 

(Always in answer the hollow voice ran, 

“Echo! Hello! 00, o. 

Oft’ when the mail train came in at the station-. 
Puffing away with such bustle and speed, 

Over and over in rapid cantation, 

“Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo,” 

Then did this queer man with vigor proceed, 
“Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, hoo, 00, o. 

Then when in youth with the one I loved dearest 
Close to my side, for our vowes we had made, 
Whispering our love lest the little man hear us, 
He couldn’t tell whispers to dell and to glade, 

For lowing, the cattle and a bold chanticleer 
Kept the old man too busy our plightings to hear. 

Dreaming I sit where -the voice of my childhood 
Cried to the echo, deep down in the wood; 

And the voice as it called from the wildwood, 
“Hello! Echo! Hello!” 

Boyhood calls back to the furrows of manhood, 
“Echo! Hello! Echo! ho, o. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


147 


THE SUMAC 

These are the brightest fires ’mid Autum’s flaming 
leaves 

Last that the lusty Winter gathers in faded sheaves, 

The dwarf-like bowers of sumac, with fruit-like hel¬ 
mets red 

Have kindled fires to linger o’er the Winter’s snowy 
bed. 

Bare looms the forest monarch in chill November’s 
gloom, 

Still dreaming of ruby sunsets and Summer’s sweet 
perfume; 

The sumac leaves are clinging like June-time’s richest 
flowers 

’Till the last red leaf is stript by Winter’s ruthless 
powers. 


A SONG OF MAY. 

Quoth my heart to the Springtime’s sweet wood notes 
With their lyrical tunes sublime, 

"Hark the glad chorus from warbling wee throats, 
How sonorous the harmonies float, 

Nature’s symphonies most devine.” 

Homely monotone notes of plumaged jay, 

Sweetest tenor trill of the linnet’s lay, 

Joyous bars of the vernal time. 



148 


SILVFK RIFTS. 


Oh, the song is sweet with jubilant ring, 

And the flowers beneath it dream. 

Oh, the trees are green where the robins swing, 
Floating notes that the song birds sing 
In the warmth of the sun’s fair gleam. 

In the chirp and cluck of bird in the nest, 

From the wee callow birds so scantly drest, 
Comes the chorus of morn’s fair dream. 

And I wathch the work of the artist queen 
Who has chiseled the snows away 
From the massive peak of the mountain green 
And bedecked its sides with varied sheen, 

Of the bud and the blossoms spray; 

And I yearn for a pallette to hold the hues 
Of the morning mists and shimmering dews, 

And the tints of the mountain gay. 

Let us ope’ our hearts to God’s vernal air 
That is wafted so sweet and free, 

All too soon will months push the verdure fair, 
To a grave in the Winter’s lair 

Where the snow king rants in his glee; 

Then, oh hark the chorus from warbling throats, 
List the loved trill of the trembling blown notes 
O'er a pregnant world of melody. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


149 


DAY BREAK AND MORN. 

When with timid rays morn’s fires first creep, 
Through the compact chroud of black-robed night, 
All the forces day’s great legions, leap 
O’er the dusky battlements to light 
Tapers that sleepy stars have dropped to earth, 
“Lo!” they cry, “The morn is born to mirth.” 
Flares a flush of gold from Eastern sky 
Where the sun lay robing for the day, 

And a host of camlet clouds pass by 
Where the rostrum peaks of mountains high 
Flood (their stage with many mellow lights, 

As the pompous king wi'tb ruddy flush 
In his ruby robes mounts gilded heights, 

Day’s first canto makes the young morn blush. 

Straightway tree tops flutter and countless birds 
Sing thanksgivings’ stanza, morning’s song. 
Jingling cow-bells rattle where meek-eyed herds 
Have awakened, squirrels skim along 
With their timid leap, hear the crows’ harsh haw. 
How he scolds the field scarecrows—haw, haw. 
The sun-ship embarks upon its ocean home, 

O’er the joyous earth its pageants roam. 

Dew drop tears that night had softly shed 
Flash and flutter from earth’s emerald bed; 
Burnished trees flash pearly gems most rare, 

Like the flickering ripples of yon stream; 

Earth has no sweeter, loftier prayer 
Than medley notes of morning’s dream. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


150 


EARTH AND SPRING. 

Earth, bare thy breast to the fruitful showers of spring! 

’Tis thine, the amulet that lures the welcome rays 
Of sunshine kisses soft, that rears the buds and brings 
The balmy breeze of spring’s halcyon sweet days. 

’Tis thine, the foliage that floats the mellow notes 
The breezes waft from out, the feathered warbling 
throats; 

As o’er thy radiant breast spring flowery gems 
Of crocus, violet, plum buds and apple limbs. 

The mirror lakes that dot thy breast like diamonds rare 
Flash argent flutt’ring light to cloudless vernal skies; 
Man breathes the fragrance of the perfume-laden air, 
And feels that life is sweet in springtime’s paradise. 


STORMS OF THE NIGHT. 

Athwart the threat’ning starless sky 
Black clouds like mighty vampires fly, 

And o’er their trail in wreckless flight 
The loose, shrouded spirits of the night 
Sweep through the space, where last the moon 
With myriad flickering pages shone. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


151 


A discontented murmur lingers 

Among ithe now conspiring trees, 
Whose slender, uncertain fingers 

Make rapid gestures, while the breeze 
Unfolds its plan of action vast, 

The advance legions rustle past. 

The humble grass blades fearful flay 

Their slender bodies ’gainst the earth. 
Tall lilies and sunflowers sway 

And tremble, reaching madly forth 
As if to seek some sheltering wing 
From arrows, the wind powers fling. 

A flash of light, a freakful dart, 

A javelin of fire is hurled 
Through yon great cloud’s black heart; 

And forth the bursting storm unfurls 
Its wrathful edict through the sky, 

Where cannon loudly, madly cry. 

The wind intoxicated by the scene, 

Grasps wildly in his mad debauch, 
Stripping the queenly trees of green, 

He strikes the naked upturned arms 
And frenzied reaches out for more, 

To toss them earthward as before. 

A moaning cry is wrung by fear 

From struggling earth’s fair form; 
And then the pitying heaven’s tears 

Reach earth and still the wreckless storm. 
How she weeps, she who has lost her stars, 
Sweeps the earth with sorrow’s overflow. 


152 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Like some sweet Charity sister 

She bathes the fainting trees and flowers, 
And fills the streams and rivulets, 

With play, for the cominig hours; 

Or, perchance she swell a river’s bed, 

To bear away the wreck and dead. 

And lo, she brings her fairest train, 

Sunrise and noonday’s gorgeous sway, 
To tie the royal knot, the chain 

Of resurected beauties, o’er the day; 
For all the earth, radiant with love, 

Smiles when smiles their God above. 


NOVEMBER. 

The fires that burned so red on fair October’s breast 
Have heaped the earth with ashes, dead leaves, at rest. 
How naked, seared and drear, this chill November 
bloom. 

When first the earth lay bare, stript of thie summer’s 
gloom! 

October’s crowning hazes, smoke of many fires, 

Have melted in the sky; the consumed funeral pyres 
Are blown by frenzied winds in clouds of havoc dust 
That searches o’er the earth and snarls with Winter’s 
lust. 

Nymph of the season’s change, of laughter full and cant, 
First child of Winter, wind whirled, thy freakful rant 
Is heard to sing the message of fireside’s cheerful glow 
And merry, homely comforts, ’mid a world of snow. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


153 


DECEMBER SNOWS. 

Countless, tiny, snowflakes falling fast to day, 

Joining in the gambols where happy children play; 
Pelting, melting snowflakes kissing baby cheeks, 
Tagging, lagging snowflakes joining baby shrieks, 
You, too>, are merry children tagging on your way, 

I dread to think how winter winds will harness you 
some day. 

Prancing, dancing snowflakes, building forms so quaint, 
Laughing at the winter which will soil your spotless 
paint; 

Merry, cheery snowflakes mantling earth so white, 
Summer’s lily robe to shield her gems from blight, 
Hold yon precious flowers in your taintless arms, 

’Till Springtime bids you to unclasp the petaled charms. 

Lifeless page of snowflakes cast o’er earth to-day, 
List ye to the message angels soon will say; 
December winds wild swaying the joy-bells to and fro, 
Chiming of the Christ-child o’er thy bedded snow; 
Drift of stainless snowflakes, crusted, peaked and 
pearled, 

Earth were bleak indeed but for thy page unfurled. 


154 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE THUNDER STORM. 

Hark! yon great gun is belched across the angry sky. 
And vast through space of earth and air the echoes cry 
Their thunderous applause as yon swift arrows dart 
In crooked chains along the deep banked sullen clouds. 
Which flee across the scolding sky of gray to crowd 
Their blackness dense and shield the storm king's 
fevered heart; 

Then forth again is belched the freakful molten fire, 
Like rockets from the gruesome hand of war. The ire 
Of untold legions, loud the bursting thunders, peal 
Like trumpets in a Caesar’s triumph train, 

To blare and roar and fretful echo back again, 

And captive nature shivers as thy warlike seal 
Is cast o’er vast domain of earth and sea and sky, 
And weak proclaims thee lord of elements on high. 


AFTER THE SHOWERS. 

Night showers have ceased to patter and sombre clouds 
are drawn, 

As sails yon ship like cloud across the disk of dawn; 
The sun has raised its anchor from out the sea of night, 
And now the dome of azure flames with an argent 
light. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


155 


Now dew-drops flash and flutter from leaf and drooping 
flow’r, 

And sunbeams hurl a sparkle over the burnished bower, 

And creep along the meadow where prostrate grasses 
lay, 

To touch each verdant heart, a kiss from the God of day. 

A feathered songster swaying calls out from rich robed 
limbs, 

Then downward fall the showers of glittering crystal 
gems; 

The forms of shattered roses, in fragrant carnage lay, 

The perfume, escence, their lives are now afloat the day. 

The amulet is given by prophet in the sky, 

And round about the breast of earth, links the mystic 
tie; 

The voice, the inspiration, from nature’s potent tongue, 

The preaching and the sermon, is to the human throng. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


156 


SINCE AUTUMN’S FIRST WHITE FROST. 

The leaves have puprpled, crimsoned hues 
Since Autumn’s first white frost; 

The green and gold tints mellow fuse 
On banners hillward tossed. 

The yellow willows wave their gold; 

The sumac fires burn red; 

And poplar limbs rich colors hold 
O’er parched grass-knotted bed. 

The cut corn camped in countless tents 
Prim scattered o’er the hill, 

Where pumpkins yellow regiments 
Are flanked in even file. 

There’s nectar in the balmy air 

(Since Autumn’s first white frost, 

And hazes in the heavens fair 
Stretch dreamy veils across. 

The night robes early fall to earth 
Since Autumn’s first white frost. 

But daytime lends a joyous girth 
In rich webs earthward tossed. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


157 


NIGHT. 

Veils are drawn across the sky 
•When the fair day dies, 

Crepe and shroud are cast on high 
M'ourning, for no sun is nigh, 
Where the dead day lies. 

One by one the lights appear 
In the black cast dome; 

Candles flicker far and near 
’Round the sombre, shrouded bier, 
In the dead day’s home. 

Then the gray moon robed in white 
Mounts the hill-tops high; 
Moves the priest in sacred rite, 
Swinging insense smoking bright, 
O’er the requiem sky. 

Moves the pageant bright along 
The funeral way, 

Then the soulful burst of song 
Soars to heaven’s starry throng, 

Ini the nightengale’s/ lag. 

As the moon melts fast away 
Dim the tapers burn, 

God is moved at heaven’s display, 
Yields to earth another day, 

Then the morn is born. 

And the stars put out their light 
And the pale moon sleeps; 
Then the morning through the night 
Gray tints shed and golden bright, 
The red sun leaps. 


158 


SILVER RIFTS. 


THE CROCUS. 

A cluster of leaves are extended 
In the sluggish April sun, 

Blue veins ’mid the white rich-blended 
’Round a heart with yellow spun; 

Where shaggy grass blades shivering 
O’er the winter’s feeble wake, 

And bush still bare is quivering 

In the chill wind’s gusty quake. 

From out the now relaxing breast 
Of the winter’s restless bride, 

Peeps here and (there a crocus crest 
With a brood of young beside. 

Where skirmish lines of robins red, 

To the North advance along, 

The crocus with its fuzz-like head 
'First inspires the burst of song. 

Then violet and the May-belle 

And a host of comrade flowers, 
Soon gather in the woods and dell 

In the balm of Springtime showers. 

Still lingers the plain mother flower, 
First to come, she’s loth to go 
Till hillside, plain and verdant bower 
Are enshrined with vernal glow. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


159 


THE SUNFLOWER. 

Not to flesh and blood is given 

Strength to watch the lordly sun, 

One by one the flow’rs have striven 
To stand guard till day was done. 

First the purple morning-glory 
Rises ere the sun is up; 

But the day king strong and hoary 
Wilting seals her fragile cup. 

Then the rose in robes so queenly 
Seeks to win the royal grace, 

Looking all the day serenely 

Such a beautious lustrous face. 

But her neck is stiff from praises 
’Tis beneath her pride to bow, 

Fair her head to heaven she raises 
But to bend she can’t somehow. 

Other flowers have vainly striven, 

Each one honest in his way, 

But to only one is given 

Strength to watch through burning day. 

Power to bend its neck at sunrise, 

Strength to lift its head at noon, 

Faith to grieving droop at sunset, 

Ah, this flower has won the boon. 

Golden crown was placed upon/ it, 

Tall it grew above the fold, 

Other flowers lie far beneath it, 

Sheltered by its form so bold. 


i6o 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Then. God placed a dome like heaven, 
Fair a shield its center part, 

And a million stars were riven 
Deep into its faithful heart. 

Birds now gather in the sunbeams 
'Nursing on its gilded breast, 

Honey bees hum pleasant day dreams, 
Linnets ’neath its shade now rest. 

Not to flesh and blood is given 

Strength to watch the lordly sun; 
One by one the flowers have striven, 
One alone this bloom has won. 


AUTUMN. 

The autumn leaves are falling in their rainbow hues 
A fire like human hopes grown ripe from heart’s 
desire, 

Too soon our cherished hopes like leaves their verdure 
loose 

And fall in gaudy tints in Autumn’s faded pyre. 

Sweet fallen hopes so dear in idle hours to dream 
Thy rich bright colors would ever be our own; 

Wind shattered leaves, seared lifeless leaves, how soon 
ye seem 

To find as we must surely find in earth a home. 

It seems when all the leaves are gone and trees are bare 
That Winter’s blasts are cruel to the naked form; 

It seems in life when loves no longer hopes can share, 
That fate’s mad tempests fiercer strikes the heart 
thus shorn. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


161 


IN HOT JULY. 

Where gray clouds hazey float and merge with one 
another, 

’Tis sweet to gaze in hot July, 

And watch the viking craft, float graceful over 
The lazy sky of hot July. 

Where wing-spread ships stand still upon the sun- 
charmed seas, 

To dreamy gaze in hot July, 

And watch the idle, patient sails wait for a breeze 
To waft them by, in hot July. 

Amid the mellow mountain shades, in sylvan dells 
The zephyrs sigh, in hot July; 

In glens where full blown bowers weave their fragrant 
spells, 

A charm is nigh, in hot July. 

Beside the brook where ripples dance and bubbles play 
Despite the heat of hot July, 

And cooling breezes play about your grateful head— 
These hours are sweet, in hot July. 


162 


SILVER RIFTS. 


YOUTH’S SOLILOQUY. 

In sombre sullen grayness, 

A cloudy day of spring, 

A youth soliloquizing 

On fate’s redentless sting. 

The dismal burden/ of thoughts, 

And shifting duties are prone 
To jar and settle roughly 

On their worn, stolid throne. 

Is life, growl existence, 

Worth the poignant living, 
Among the shattered efforts 
Of ambition’s striving; 

So many heartaches, the wants 
That linger unfulfilled, 

Amid the carnage, the hopes 
That fate has ruthless killed. 

I hear the wallow of sigh, 

The dire distress of pain; 

I hear the noonday blast 

Of sorrow’s weird refrain, 

The unharmonious chorus 

Whose canting ever swells 
In plaintive accents, mingling 
• With chimes of vesper bells. 

I trace the furrows on 

My neighbor’s time-seared brow, 
I know my heart-aches soon 
Will equal furrow’s plow; 

And features e’er so smiling. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 163 

Be it e’«r so cheerful face, 

Must bear the mars of time’s 
Capricious pencil trace. 

The sunshine glimmers burst 

Through webs of verdant bowers, 
Among the creeping vines 

And hearts of brilliant flowers, 

And as the grim despair 
His gloomy fetters tied, 

The sun’s fair kisses pressed 
And shadows quickly died. 

From out the house came kittens 
■With purr and meek intent, 

To linger in> the sunshine 

And dream with life content; 

The cluck of mother hen 

Has called her chic'kies out, 

To gather rays of sunshine 
That grace the day about. 

The birds in chorus song 

Were warbling joyful their lays, 

For gleams of brightest sunshine 
Have graced another day. 

The robin chirps sprightly, 

Beside her callow brood, 

For they must have the sunshine 
To wear a healthful mood. 

Ah, youth, in sombre silence, 

Where sorrows’ vapors float, 

List, voices are calling ’round thee 
A happy, blithsome note. 


164 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Arise, out in the sunbeams 
The mellow day is sweet 
And beauties lie around thee 
Unfurled, the heart to greet. 

And so it is with trouble 

The sunshine lingers ’round, 
And sweet joy notes are calling, 
Harken their joyous sound; 
Clouds may enshroud the morning, 
Sunshine will kiss the moon, 
’Tis better to bask in sunshine, 
Its rays fade all too soon. 


A WINTER’S MORN. 

No painter could trace with fancy’s deft brush. 
The flow’ry shapes, the delicate flush, 

That in the frozen night were born 
To hang so frail this winter morn. 

On wood-shed walls ’neath summer’s gold sun 
The spider’s web was plentiful spun; 

To-day the whitest curtains of lace 
Are hanging in folds of frailest grace. 



PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


165 


The walls are spangled with tiny stars 
And hung with frail fairy colanders, 

A string of pearls are hanging low 
To shapely dangle to and fro. 

Your door is guarded with glittering spears 
Where icicles shed fluttering tears, 

And weep from the ecstatic bliss, 

The warmth of sunshine’s shimmering kiss. 

The sparrows in patches out on the street. 
Are pecking and chattering homely sweet; 

The bare lilac of yesterday 

Has blossoms that form a virgin spray. 

Across the hills stretch the glimmering snow 
Where millions of gems in the sunlight 1 glow, 
While merry sleigh-bells jingle sweet 
Out on the gloss of the busy street. 

The earth is crisp with the glist and the sleek 
The winter rose blooms on your cheek, 

The sprightly step of the passer by 
Is launched from the vim of winter’s sky. 


166 


SILVER RIFTS. 


VOICES OF THE WIND. 

Soft waves the leafy burnished bowers, 

Of maple, oak and poplar limbs, 

That whisper through the evening hours 
Some lover tales the breezes tell; 

They told it on the pebbled shore 
And whispered in. the ocean shell 
Or tossed it with increasing swell 
Across the sea, where sea fowl soar 
And then in bubbles on the sand 
It bursts and speeds across the land. 

Wild sways the burnished leafy bowers 
When javelins of wind hurl by, 

And storm king casts his magic power 
Of flame across the angry sky; 

Where rants the rattling thunder’s cry, 

The voice is caught among the trees 
And rages in an unknown tongue, 

That’s hurried by the fleeting breeze 
And hurled across the battling seas 
And tossed the hoary crags among 

Grand wind toned chorus of the seas 

That chants through time’s eternal hours. 
Sweet subdued chorus in the trees 

That lingers in those tinted bowers 
And sings the message that the breeze 
Has carried from the restless seas. 

The magic power that rules the wave 
Is busy also ’mid the leaves. 

The winds that yield the sailors’ grave 
In crystal depths his ocean home, 

Will bind the bowers in Autumn sheaves 
And. ruthless over them mocking roam. 


PEN PICTURES OF NATURE. 


167 


FALLING APPLE BLOSSOMS. 

Adrift the morning’s rich perfume, 

Pale lily leaves fair falling leaves 
In virgin wreaths and scented sheaves 
Are fluttering from the bridal bloom, 

Fair lifeless garments to the tomb. 

And as they fall through balmy air, 

The verdant heath their royal sheath, 
From silent death the last sweet breath 
Is caught as fragrant insense rare 
And woven in earth’s vernal prayer. 

The perfume of thy fallen strife, 

Pale lily leaves, fair falling leaves, 

Now crumbled wreath and faded sheaevs, 
Thy scented garlands rich and rife 
Have crept and blessed our life. 


NIGHT’S PSALMODIST. 

I stood beneath a verdant bower, 

In hush of a night of calm. 

I watched the star gems scatter ’round, 
Like notes on bars of a psalm. 



SILVER RIFTS. 


168 


I thought if but . some singer sweet, 
Could follow the unsung strain, 

How grand the burst of melody 
Would echo on the plain. 

And as I gazed in dreamy bliss, 

Sweet through the soft night air, 

Come notes that thrilled like lovers’ kiss. 
Or smile of a maiden fair. 

I gazed upon th/e singer sweet, 

’Twas not of the form of man; 

Ah, no! for never mortal could 
Full grasp the starry plan. 

And as the pale moon’s silevr light 
Casts rays on the throat so frail, 

I thanked God for His warbling gift. 
The voice of the nightengale. 


SOUL QUESTIONS 


169 


Soul Questions. 


LEGIONS OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 

Vast is the open field that men tread onward to the 
grave. 

Side by side, pass in ermine the rich, in, chains the 
slave. 

Beside the proud patrician oft’ the beggar begs for 
bread 

As legions of the living, pass to legions of the dead. 

Where the temples of the learned dazzle bright in sun¬ 
lit gleams. 

Where the hut of the savage, narrow space for earthly 
dreams, 

In the realms of peace and plenty, pest, siege, and 
famine dread, 

Pass the legions of the living, to the legions of the 
dead. 

Here we list the cant of misery, there the wail of woe, 

Joy and pain, love and hate, commingles in life’s flow, 

Weary age, and dreamy youth, manhood with ambition 
fed 

Pass in legions of the living, to legions of the dead. 

Hear the jingling of the sleigh-bells in the wintry 
Northern clime, 

Hear the song of the Southern telling love and life in 
rhyme, 

Hear in every zone the clammer as the masses onward 
tread, 

From the legions of the living, to the legions of the 
dead. 



170 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Vast the open field that men tread onward to the grave. 

Small indeed the part we play; how great the mark 
we crave? 

We dream, we hope, with longings unsatisfied we 
reach, 

We study, we imitate, yet in struggling still we teach. 

Life’s much as we make it, we choose the moral sphere 
we tread 

In the legions of the living, and the legions of the 
dead. 

Strew then the choicest flower of truth along life’s 
pathway spread, 

To greet the coming living, with a bloom o’re wake 
of the dead. 


LIFE’S GARDEN. 

Oh life is a garden of tangled vines 
Which the gardener will leisurely trim. 

There is never a day but the bright sun shines 
On the withered forms of his harvest grim; 
There is never an hour in ticking time, 

But the healthy leaves with the faded fall; 

And every twig on each princely vine, 

Must be stript with the knife—and wither all. 



SOUL QUESTIONS. 


WHILE I HAVE BEEN AWAY. 

A crown was placed on mother’s head; 

While I have been away 
The angel Age has come and spread 
A wreath of white and gray— 

A white-haired wreath of spotless grace 

Was pressed ’round mother’s loving face. 

Her eyes have lost their lustre much 
While I have been away, 

And mellowed soft and dreamy, such 
As angels pure convey. 

Her voice has now a softer air, 

A tender note like vespers’ prayer. 

The fingers that had curled my hair 
So long, so long ago, 

Now white and frail and wrinkled are. 

Were I a boy, I know, 

The tender touch so loved of yore 

Would fondle gently with my hair. 

While mother rocks now to and fro, 

There in the old arm chair, 

I’ll tell her of my roamings, so, 

And stroke the whitened hair, 

And kiss the wreath of spotless grace 

That age has pressed ’round mother’s face. 


172 


SILVER RIFTS. 


FAITH. 

We question, and we grasp the mystic veil aside, 

And peer with beating brain' into the great un¬ 
known, 

And fluttering shadows indistinct and spectral glide, 
With fleeting swiftness or with changeful sluggish stride. 
As reason lost in space from wind, to wind is blown. 

And what a weakly thing is reason’s mighty reed, 
When beating at the shadows of the vast to be. 

It is but logic from its common confines freed, 

A ruthless scattering of most ungainly seed, 

A probing into space where all is mystery. 

There is no solid ground of earthly substance made, 
Whereon to stand, or build a fabric, life to be, 

An only boon to us, this one great plank is laid 
By heaevn, a faith, a hope, of love’s most ardent braid. 
That draws our trembling bark o’er life’s mad sea. 


THE SUM OF LIFE. 

At the threshold when life’s morning 
Gleams with promise of fair day, 
Earth is new with bright to-morrow’s 
Mind dreams not of yesterday. 

At the threshold tapers burning 

Cast fair glimmers o’er the way; 
There has been no call for trimming 
Tapers we lit but to-day. 



SOUL QUESTIONS. 


173 


In the foothills of the mountain 
That we call the space of life, 
Beauties grace our every footstep, 
Fields are green and flowers rife. 

When the space ahead yields promise, 
Bouyant hopes propel us on, 
Treasures lie unfurled about us 
Heeded not the hills we climb; 

’Till the day of life is yawning 
And we see the setting sun 
Light the space we left behind us 

Pointing out the course we run. 

Far below we see the valley, 

Children playing on the green, 
Higher up on verdant foothills 

Shepherds plod their way between. 

Here and there tall spires are gleaming 
With the kiss of parting day, 

Did we pass those mighty temples? 
Yes, ’twas on our upward way. 

Yes, and there’s a rock we tumbled, 
Heedless in our wreckless haste; 
Now far down the mighty mountain 
We can trace its path in waste. 

Shadows gather down the mountain, 
Upwards lie the fields of snow, 
And the pale moon rises grandly, 
Casting o’er his silver glow. 

Silver snows upon the mountain, 

Silver glimmers in the sky, 

Silver locks upon the pilgrim, 

Pale dead hopes in carnage lie. 


174 


SILVER RIFTS. 


High above where stars are shining. 
Twinkling in the dome of night, 
Hopes grow bright as voices calling. 
Voices just beyond our sight; 

Down below the fetters loosen, 

High above friends eager yearn 
As the pilgrim lays life’s burden 
On the mountain summit stern. 


INCOMPLETION. 

So incomplete, so incomplete, 

The life we prize of fleeting days; 

We crave to greet each wish complete, 
Fulfillment in our daily ways. 

So incomplete, so incomplete; 

And yet methinks ’tis better so. 

With passion’s heat, is flesh replete; 

Fulfillment would the wise o’erthrow. 

But longings pure, when these endue, 

And minds do reach good ends to greet. 
And o’er life’s moor, the wild winds roar 
The sigh of “Failed, ’twas incomplete!” 

Then God, I cry, beyond the sky 

Hast thou a home, with means replete, 
Where we may make, for thy dear sake, 
Each good that failed us, all complete? 



SOUL QUESTIONS 


175 


SABBATH PRAISE. 

The church bells were a ringing deep 
One Sabbath morn in June, 

Soon cultured harmonies did sweep 
In blending praiseful tune. 

I sat beneath the spreading bowers, 

Deep stained with regal green, 

And ’round me Summer’s fragrant flowers, 
Were cast in tinted sheen. 

I listened to another song 

More sweet than cultured choirs, 

As warbling rich, touched feathered throng, 
Hosannahs on their lyres. 

I know that earthly temples yield, 

No song so pure as this, 

For God has decekd this altar field, 

From which I hear such bliss. 

In cassock brownj the high priest thrush, 
Sweet chants a deep Oremus, 

While swelling song bursts mellow gush, 
Gloria in Excelsus Deo. 

Oh, not ’neath gilded dome alone, 

Is praise and tribute given. 

Earth is to-day a verdant zone, 

Where song bursts lead to heaven. 

A voice in ev’ry rich robed bower, 

Sings notes to praise the Maker’s power. 


176 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


THE FLEETING DAY. 

Above the city’s din and blast 
I sit in my room alone, 

And list’ the footsepts falling fast 
On the busy streets of stone, 

Patter, patter, patter, 

Like rain drops on the roof, 

Clatter, clatter, clatter, 

The foot falls and the hoof. 

A thousand minds that are weary, 

A few that are light and gay, 

The sad, the busy, the cheery, 

Are winding their homeward way 

The night lowers and the ebbing, 

Like a tide goes out to sea, 

And silence is slowly webbing, 

Its dreams o’er humanity, 

Patter, patter, patter, 

A wayfarer through the night, 
Clatter, clatter, clatter. 

A reveller’s hasty flight, 

And then a hush that’s deep and long, 

A pall o’er the wake of the dead, 
And vanished it seems, the busy throng, 
With their pattering, clattering tread. 

A day with its din and confusion, 

A night that is voiceless, vast, 

Our lives are simply a fusion 

Of a day when the night crowds fast. 
Patter, patter, patter, 

The' race course leads around, 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


Clatter, clatter* clatter, 

We hear the falling sound, 

The victor and the vanquished pass, 

A cheer and the end of the race, 

The winding and the losing mass, 

All surge from the grand stand space. 

A day that tires and oppresses, 

A night with a silence deep, 

With dreams of loved ones’ carresses 
The rest and the soothing of sleep. 
Patter, patter, patter, 

A footfall few will miss, 

Clatter, clatter, clatter, 

A tear, a space for a kiss. 

A constant pattering, clattering sound, 

A night and all is still. 

The morrow’s business patters around 
And will every loop hole fill. 


178 


SILVER RIFTS. 


RECTIFICATION. 

Oh, the sham of it all! 

This life is but a farce. 

The rush and the wake and the pall 
All follow so quick that scarce 
Is it worth the fleeting while 
A serious thought to beguile; 

’Tis better to laugh and be gay 
From youth until the locks are gray. 

’Tis better the gay unplanned routine. 
The rush and whirl and social sheen. 

But things wouldn’t meet somehow, 
Duty would come unaware, 

An ugly scar then and now 
Through sleeping hours would stare; 
The spirit of sleep had fled 
In place was the ghost of the dead, 
“Plunge deeper,” the spectre cried. 

A friendlier voice replied, 

“Oh, the farce; the sham of it all, 

The rush and the wake and the pall!” 

Oh, the sham of it all! 

When life is but a farce, 

The rush and the wake, the pall 
All follow so quick that scarce 
Is’t worth the fleeting while 
To live and to laugh and smile. 

’Tis better the calm of one just hour, 
And better the breath of one fair flower. 
Than years employed in being gay 
From youth until the locks are gray. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


179 


Oh, the joy of it all! 

If at the end of life 

We-ve stood through the rush and fall 

For good in the thick of strife, 

In calm and in storm have tried 
To look at the brighter side. 

To smile, and to weep may be, 

To speak and to act in charity, 

To gather what joys and tears are given 
And carry them cheerfully to heaven. 


THE DYING POET. 

One last sweet song I crave from thee, my muse; 

One tender plaintive song upon thy lyre; 

Soft thrill my parting soul and sweet infuse 

Those dreamed of notes, life’s finis song inspire. 

THE SONG. 

A dream in youth, a dream of pride and fame, 

When men should recognize and praise my worth, 
And honor yield the poet’s deathless name; 

Yet these desires were born, alas, of earth. 



SILVFR RIFTS. 


180 

Dreams, idle dreams, no more, no more I sing 
To charm the caprice of the changeful ear; 

One noble thought, can I but safely wing, 

To some poor eye bedimmed by pain and tear. 

If but one soul can climb on words oi mine 

To where God’s peace will shine upon its way, 

I am content that fitful fame should shine 
Far, far from me to shed its lustrous ray; 

And if one thought unworthy of the light, 

Was cast by me upon life’s ocean wave, 

Wind, flame and tempest, oh, bury deep from sight 
Those lines; consign firm in my grave. 

It comes! It comes! The inspiration of my dreams. 

Sweet harmonies of rythm, melodies of sound; 
Into my soul there flows the rapturous stream 

Of poesy divine! Oh joy! Oh muse, rebound! 

My pen! My pen! To grasp this last sweet song. 

The hand is cold; I cannot pen the air; 

High, high it soars Parnassus peaks along. 

I come! I come! This earth could hold no tune 
so rare, 

And I must follow to its sweet somewhere. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


181 


THE UNSHED TEAR. 

Beside the open grave there stood 
Two that had loved and lost; 

From eyes of one gushed sorrow’s flood, 
The hot tears falling fast; 

The other stood with downcast head, 

No tears were flowing for her dead; 

With tight clasped hand, with tearless eye, 
With voice too fettered ’round to cry, 

She bore that burden so austere, 

That pent up flood, the unshed tear. 

The maid whose cheek has pallid grown 
While she has stitched and drudged; 
And struggled with grim want alone 
Just to be harshly judged; 

To gaze with wildly throbbing head 
Into the grave of hopes long dead; 

To wish for one sweet breath of Spring 
In verdant woods where song birds sing; 
Ah, she has felt that load austere 
That pent up flood, the unshed tear. 

’Mid splendor of her gilded home 
The petted beauty weeps; 

The ready tears are wont to roam 
Adown those lily cheeks, 

Some wish of hers is unfilled, 

And hence this flood of tears are spilled, 
An hour from now her rippling laugh 
Will ring as ruby wine she quaffs; 

She has not felt that load austere, 

The pent up flood, the unshed tear. 


182 


SILVER RIFTS. 


REVENGE. 

A flame consuming fire, 

That saps the will, the soul; 

Vast hate begetting ire, 

Revenge and pain the whole. 

An arm that ever cuts 

The tender, naked part; 

An oath that ever shuts 

God’s sunshine from the heart. 

An anchor dragging deep 
Where evil spirits dwell; 

Desires that slyly creep 

From out the mouth of hell. 

Then consummation—’tis done, 
God’s brand the Stygian stain, 

And peace and happiness shun 
The soul of every Cain. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


I «3 


ULTIMITY. 

Once long ago, strange whispered words were cast 
As questions, why and wherefore to my soul, 

So strange I shuddered, trejnbled, yet held fast 
To list the tempting whisper o’er and o’er; 

Then doubt, faith trembled, and lo, thewhole 
Once steadfast universe was firm no more. 

Life, death, eternity, whence came this maze 

That tangles ’round and ’round with dizzy speed? 
God, heaven, Christ, oh all consuming blaze, 

Why hast thy greed like fiends’ hellish lust 
Stript me of all the pillars that I need, 

To mocking whisper back, “Dust, dust; just dust.” 

No God to flame his halo from my skies; 

I cannot always penetrate the night; 

Reach as I may, this finite mind can ’rise 
Only to gaze into the deep abiss 
That reeking death hath seared with stench and blight, 
A charnal, worms and grim decay for bliss; 

And ever in my ears the clinking jar 

Of chains that link and bind me to the dust, 

In all the universe no guiding star; 

And yet because my heart was sore I prayed, 

And lo, it seemed there came then from afar 
A tender, pitying voice that gently said: 

“Whence came this yearning for a higher life? 

Wert thou but dust thy native element 
Would hold thee ever to it’s heart. No strife 

Like snakes that bask and grovel in the grass, 
Thy life with dust would be content; 

No hopes or burning doubts could thee harass; 


184 


SILVER RIFTS. 


“Thou searchest madly, wildly, and for what? 

For that from whence thou earnest, life and love; 
Once created conscience can never rot, 

In endless universe* for joy or pain, 

Sheltered in peace or Cain-like doomed to rove, 

To realize thy loss, thy constant bane.” 

I listened as it whispered more and more; 

Doubt trembled, faith smiled, and lo, behold the 
whole 

Now radiant universe was girdled o’er 

With beauty, the harmony of God’s love, 

And in my rapture, lo, my yearning soul 

Leaped o’er earth’s barriers, knowing God above. 

Death lost it’s terror, death meant but to see 
The workings of the mighty ether spheres, 

And through the vast of all eternity 

To drift with all God’s harmonies at peace. 

O troubled' soul; still, still thy pent up fear 

For death is but thy tears and pains surcease. 


SOUL QUESTIONS 


J85 


BROKEN RESOLUTION. 

’Twas but a swift flowni hour ago 
I felt temptation ’rise 

And sweep swift, how I scarcely know, 

Whence, where, was swept my prize? 

With a bounding raid o’er my barricade, 

In the distant shade, I saw it fade 

In oblivion deep, the resolve I would keep. 

How frail this fabric I had reared 
To bar the stern wind’s blast; 

The weakness of my plan appeared 
As my structure fell and crashed; 

And I heard a sigh where the hot winds fly, 
From a barren lair, to a lost somewhere; 

And a weak, last sigh like a ghost ’rose high 
As a deep despair, or a soul wrought prayer. 


MEMORIES. 

Each little life however cramped it be, 

Has its sweet memories of happy hours, 

And in the storms when life looms drearily, 

These are the shades ’round which we scent our 
flowers. 



i86 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Be life so harsh we rant beneath our load, 

Seems past and present but a sinful waste, 

Still, still, we have some loving episodes, 

Some oasis of memories more chaste; 

Perhaps ’tis but a mother’s kiss or prayer; 

Perhaps a love more passionate outspoke; 

I’va known a homely old familiar air, 

A maudlin laugh, or vulgar word to choke. 

Whate’er it be that calms the heated blood, 

God gave it when we little thought ’twould serve 

To soothe a pain or crush some willful mood, 

Some virtue to enhance, perhaps preserve. 

These should we prize, these nobler episodes, 

They draw us from the foul, the tempting lure, 

As does foul memories draw to foul abodes 
Unless outdone by memories more pure. 

Life is but stormy, e’en when ’tis most calm, 

Treasure these sweets, these boons from out the 
past, 

Like ointment, or some soothing, healing balm 
To wounds that rankle in a passion’s blast. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


IS? 


THE PRICE OF GENIOUS. 

“He aimed too high and failed,” they said, 

And wound their way to the home of the dead. 
“Good traits he had and talents none deny,” 

“His only fault was in his aim, too high,” 

“Our James a goodly farm has lately bought,. 

And had not talents, education, or such brains 
As he the dead man had with all his aims.” 

And so they passed within the portals of the dead 
And gazed upon the majesty, the head, 

Nor even death could strip it’s noble mien, 

The soul still seemed to slumber there serene. 
They pitied him, he aimed so high and failed, 

Yet now in peaceful death, at rest, they quailed; 
This lifeless form, this nobly moulded clay 
Caused them to feel, to know how small were they. 

His thoughts had scaled the brightness of the sun 
How could these little minds look firm thereon? 
Compassion led his steps from heart to heart 
In hopes that he might link them part to part. 
Their lives were full of gossip and small talk, 

How could they understand the sacred walk 

Where he had gathered flowers as he trod 

And learned how near their blossoms were to God. 

“He aimed so high and failed,” they said; 
Another found his thoughts, and lo, they led 
From dreams to deeds, and lo, they led to fame, 
And many learned and reverenced his name, 

While they that pitied him because he failed 
Now praised his genius and long faced bewailed 
That God had called him where they'd understand 
Thoughts and designs that heavenward expand. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


188 


THY KINGDOM COME. 

Thy kingdom come. 

Millions of souls look up to Thee, 

No other wish than soon to see 
Thy kingdom come. 

Oh, sweet to league from sea to sea 
One hope that which is dearest Thee, 

One prayer, O loved, O beauteaus flame, 
To rear o’er earth Thy holy name, 

To hush each doubting soul to rest, 

Oh, safe within Thy yearning breast, 

Thy kingdom come. 

Day breakes, the dawn of longed for day, 
When bound to Thee all hearts will say, 
Thy kingdom come. 


SHIP BUILDERS. 

Education and dreams of our childhood 

Weave the sails that must stand the fierce gale 
While the bold rugged sinews of manhood, 

Shape the ship, be it strong built or frail. 



SOUL QUESTIONS 


' 189 


We are building a ship, each one of us, 

’Tis old age trims thebark for the storm. 

Wily death cuts us loose from our anchor, % 

The ships’ crew life’s great struggles will form. 
If our thoughts and designs have been evil, 

Then like creatures will man the frail bark; 

If the good in our life predominates, 

Fearless seamen shall steer through the dark. 

Each fierce storm on the sea we must cover 
Will be branded with some sinful name; 

And the wave that is surest to crush us 

Will bear on it’s crest life’s worst flame; 

And the crew that will save or destroy us, 

Will have traitors to just the extent, 

That in life our false passions have mastered, 
That of good in our natures bent. 

O loved ship that for years I’ve been building, 
May I learn year by year to build more 
With a view to the storm that’s impeding, 

And to sheathe with firm Godliness o’er. 

It is smooth down the river of life to float, 

But far out on the wave leaping sea, 

We must need the bark strong, for forever 
We must live where our ship sails us to. 


190 


SILVER RIFTS. 


DIRECT THE PATH TO CHOOSE. 

We daily view confusion ’s open field 

Where cant and miser-craft share rabid gains; 

We daily hear the fall as weak ones yield, 

Often ourselves do share the moral stains. 

The field doth daily stretch behind, before, 

We hear the constant clamor of the strife, 

And hear the plaintive voice within implore 
Turn to the virgin pagei the book thy life. 

List’ we the tender voice within us pleading, 
'Condemn not the weak, assist and uphold, 

To sow the moral seed is worth the seeding 
To rear a plant that love and truth unfold. 

Too true, the fallen have full many errors, 

But why be harsh when flesh is heir to such; 
Why lash and taunt, reproach to feeble frames. 
But bare the past; have not ourselves erred much? 

’Tis better far to wrap the fallen form about 

iWith love’s soft robe that will not jar the bruise. 

And point the errors as a friend point out, 

And as a friend direct the path to choose. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


I 9 I 


THE PHANTOM AND HAPPINESS. 

THE PHANTOM. 

Fair, fleeting dream of life’s completest hope, 
Phantom of the mind’s pursued ideal, 

More sought because thy agile horoscope 

Has made thee indistinct, but not unreal; 

Has made men long thy throbbing pulse to feel. 

We are but butterflies with wings outspread, 

And fleeting eager in thy golden wake; 

Sad or joyous as thy caprice leads 

Thy will to fragments fling or playful break 

Some cassia essence o’er our heated heads. 

Could we but overtake thy tempting form, 

What empty, painted glories we would find; 

Not all the riot lightnings’ fretful storm 

Could be of greater force to fullest blind 

Our eyes to love and crush the prostrate mind. 

Not all the labyrinth of darkened space 

Could lead to hateful chaos more entire 

Than cynic thoughts, born ’neath thy smiling face; 
Or shallowness of thy vain gilded fire, 

Or sadness of thy gruesome funeral pyre. 

HAPPINESS 

Would we seek Happiness, her potent self, 

Is loyal, resting in the human heart. 

With looks askance at this fair phantom pelf 
That flaunts so free her noble counterpart,. 

And mimics all her sacredness and art. 


192 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Could we unravel all her tender strings, 

Each would but surely lead from man to man; 

Each at your touch would thrilling love notes sing, 
Each would but teach the scope, the noble plan 

Of life’s sweet, gentle queen Pierion. 

Ah! men will follow her that soars so high, 

Not dreaming of the distance they must fall; 

Hence in the human heart the frequent sigh 
That restless pleads our duties to recall; 

To Mother Nature, sons and daughters all. 

Some strings that lay for long so near our hand 
We may take up and slowly them unwind; 

And when we hear those harmonies so grand, 

We learn how soothing sweet ’tis to be kind. 

And this alone is happiness we find. 


THE DAWN OF TRUTH UPON THE SOUL. 

Awake! Low rolls the camlet clouds of dawn 
To bare the virgin heavens’ boundless peace; 

And lo, across the flushing East are drawn 
The crimson chariots, the skies release, 

To herald the approach of fruitful love, 

Impartial, ruling king above. 



SOUL QUESTIONS. 


193 


Awake! Low rolls the camlet clouds of dawn, 

And in this peace, the great soul leaps from night; 
And lo, across the flushing East are drawn 
The first unblemished floods of sacred flight. 

Red rides the God of love o’er mountain high, 

Where endless snows in lily peaks pure lie. 

Hark! How the day is born ’mid warbling notes. 
List! How the brooklet gurgles in its mirth; 

How swells the joyous song from feathered throats, 
And yet this peace. Is this a part of earth? 

Could we have daily slept away such morns? 

Ah, yes! ’Till truth, ’till love, ’till peace was born. 

Now bounds the unchaned soul through regions vast, 
Freed from the government of mad desire, 

Chaste nature has unloosed her tongue and cast 
Her mellow voice to noble thoughts inspire; 

Peace, happiness, love, these are human rights. 
Awake, ye souls, and see the light, the light! 

Awake! Thy God within thee stirs for room; 

Reach out, ’tis thine and His, the arm that lifts. 

Wilt thou still sleep in such a clammy tomb? 

God’s sunshine streams afire through heaven’s rift; 
And lo, there flares the first bright flame, man’s will— 
For good is freed, the minds, great space God’s beauty 
fills. 

Ah, this is love! God manifest in man. 

Awake! Low rolls the camlet clouds of dawn; 

Love’s legions ride across, the day to span. 

Yield ye this fragrant hour, such joy to pawn 
For lethargy? This sweet day’s gentle touch, 

Truth, love, and peace ride by. Are these not much? 


194 


SILVER RIFTS. 


PESSIMIST AND OPTIMIST. 

In this great sphere of ours, the field of human strife. 
Where cowards hide beneath the glitter of bright gold. 
And slaves value duty at paltry market price, 

We point the vice of fickle mankind, bought with glare, 
While silent pass the unheralded worthy hosts 
Whose minds are most influenced by worth and merit. 
If no clamor in their passage may greet the ear, 

The historian’s pen hands their influence on. 

In that great passion field, loves of the human heart; 
Where vain pretence and proffer are linked with deceit, 
Where love and hate seem silent partners to booty, 
We point the shallowness, disgusted with its depth. 
While silent pass beside the countless fervent souls 
Whose calm possessions, peace, fidelity and love, 

Have made their passage happy, hence their footsteps 
light, 

’Tis well the poet’s pen drowns the cynic’s protest. 

In that great field the fraternity of action 

Lay countless souls, embodied in the mire of self; 

As up from the carnage ascends the nauseus stench, 

We shudder, oft we question, “Be charity dead?” 

Yet there, among the groping hirelings of a whim, 
We see the tender face and helping outstretched hands, 
That whispers sympathy and courage as they lift, 

In doubt we sketch the wrong, silent we bless the right. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


195 


TWO PICTURES IN AN ART GALLERY. 
In a hall where Art is master, 

Artists’ brush has wrought galore, 

Faces moved as though in laughter, 
Heads round which the angels soar. 
One, a face of peace—Madonna— 
Yields a fragrance, pure and sweet. 

Close beside, the brave Belonna. 

’Round her feet, grim wars fierce heat; 
Angels soar with beaming faces, 

O’er Madonna’s pensive head. 

Firm the face that interlaces; 

Victory! Belonna’s crown is lead! 


THOUGHTS. . 

Man thought, and forth the arm upraised. Base-born 
Or noble be thy thought, swift, full sure they bring 
The consummation, in the bodies act. 

Can thoughts be void, have they not life compact? 

Man thought, and deed was born through impetus. 
Was this not life, the very germ of life? 

The chaste Agnuscastus or the Verus 
That made the physical action rife; 

Thoughts, things, ’twas these that first caused man to 
build; 

Thoughts, things, oh give us these perfection filled! 



196 


SILVER RIFTS. 


But cause this universe to sway with thoughts 
Of love and all the pent up harmony 
Of untold spheres will radiate our lives, 

And yield to man their sacred symphony; 

For evil lives on man’s sufference alone, 

And misery incarnate is thought’s evil zone. 

Wants, evil passions, are pressing things that live; 
Bold, robust thoughts, grown petulant from ruling; 
These could not live, would we but constant seive 
Them down, re-incarnate and mould through schooling. 
These of themselves will die for want of nourishment 
These germs may live for good in this same lodgment 
Thoughts, winged messengers that sail through bound¬ 
less space; 

Thoughts, ye tireless sea gulls of life’s limitless main; 
Let that which lives be noble and expand apace, 

For ships will bear their cargoes to their own domain. 
Thoughts are so timid, when you sullen from them down 
Each is a potent magnet, drawing to his train 
A simile that be a blessing or a lown, 

A joy, or mind and flesh decay and pain. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


I 9 7 


DEATH AND LOVE. 

Down from the North the chill wind creeps. 
The shivering blast increasing sweeps, 

And flowing waters swift congeal 
As night’s deep shadows, densely steal, 

All nature cold and stiff has grown; 

As o’er the mantle white is thrown. 

How deep the sullen clouds are flanked 
Against the heavens, hugely banked. 

Oh vast! oh deep! oh frowning night! 
When lo! the pale moon’s silv’ry light, 

A grand bright stream, as though of love, 
Is cast through silver rift above. 

Oh God, scent death! how chill it creeps; 
And stills the warm blood as it sweeps. 
Oh, God sent love! oh shaft that heals! 
When warmest hopes and loves congeal. 
Through sorrows’ dark and rayless night, 
Love casts those floods of hallowed light, 
And bids us hope and meet again, 

And links to life one grand amen. 


198 


SILVER KIFTS. 


HEREAFTER. 

When flesh no longer with its mortal load 
Shall burden spirit, then- another life 
Where useless wrangling, vainglorious strife, 

Will perish at the gate. Oh sweet abode! 

No fierce appeal to passion then can goad 
True friends awrong. Where each a perfect part 
Of one grand whole, and burns a flame, one heart 
Unites a multitude in one grand mode. 

Where friend’s may gather trust, and peace and 
love 

As the dove cot gathers in the spotless doves, 
Misgivings none; assurance in each) act; 

One happy sphere, one common wish compact. 


THE LINGERING SIGH. 

How vast this ever lingering sigh 
That hovers o’er the aged earth. 

It seems to moan as moments die, 

And form an unvisible girth. 

We hear it sweep through naked trees. 
And flee before the Winter’s blast, 
And creep along the changeful seas 

And cling about each towering mast. 



SOUL QUESTIONS. 


I99 


Among red roses, flowers of love, 

The summer winds a murmur sigh; 

At close of day the murmuring dove 
Laments life’s pains with dismal cry. 

In dreams the romping tired child, 

The gay, bewitching, sweet-faced maid 

Will sigh, though sleep be e’er so mild, 

The thought that makes the heart afraid. 

All through the busy ways of life, 

Oh list the ever garbled sigh; 

The craving for the end of strife, 

The pains that yield the strength to die. 

Men yearn, and hence all men must sigh. 

Oh, oft it is for truth and love, 

The tender strings, that left high high, 

The turmoil of this strife above. 

There is a land, in dreams we’ve rent its veils 
And sought one glimpse, the reign of peace 

And then life’s ship with fuller sails 

Speeds on. to reach this strife’s surcease. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


ON THE SUMMIT. 

Lone on the bleak of life’s mountain peak, 

Lone on the bald of life’s summit sleek, 

“ ’Twixt the loves above and the loves below,” 
On the threshold of whence we cannot know. 
Shrings the frail pinions of the soul, at seeking 
He whom omnipotent now solemn speaking, 

Lets the Syrma robes fall, 

Lets the longing voice call, 

Lone on the bleak of life’s mountain peak. 

Then from the bleak of life’s mountain peak, 

Then from the bald of life’s summit sleek, 

Pass the deceits, sorrows, falsehoods and woes, 
Passions grown fetid, fools in wiseman’s cloths; 
Life with its fickleness, manners moulding fates, 
All are sealed at the click of earth’s closing gates. 
The Syirma robes now fall; 

God’s chosen voices call, 

Lone on the bleak of life’s mountain peak. 

Lone on the bleak of life’s mountain peak. 

Lone on the bald of the summit sleek, 

Comes the dream angel with sleep blessed rest; 
Many soft kisses from loved ones are pressed 
By lips that have long, long yearned 1 for thee 
From the farther shore of life’s tempest sea, 

The Syrma robes must fall 

At Death’s stearn hushed call 

Lone on the bleak of life’s mountain peak. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


201 


CONVALESCENCE. 

He had suffered for weeks with his ailments, 
But at last in a quiet spread chair, 

He could sit and gaze on earth’s battlements, 
And enhale the springtime air. 

And it seemed the skies had grown bluer 
Since the earth took on its green, 

And it seemed his life had grown truer 
Since pain had stript it of spleen. 

From the trees where the bowers wide spreading 
Scatter garland of entwining shade, 

Came the song of robin and linnet. 

Sweet! sweet! were the warblings they made; 
Sweet! sweet! sang the bobolink. 

Sweet! sweet! the meadow larks lay; 

Sweet! sweet! Why all through the verdure 
Rings God’s sweet, sweet song of May. 
And he knew that though pain and suffering 
Shortly, wrenched each tender vein, 

That at last came the voice of the Father: 

“Sweet! Sweet! I have won you again.” 
Then crush doubts of faith and misgivings; 

Let them die with the pains of the past, 
And list the loved voice of the Father, 

“Sweet! Sweet! I have found you at last.” 


COMPLETION. 

One wish alone from out my heart’s desire, 
Yield me; though others drift like chaff effete, 
I would with this each fickle hour inspire, 

Let me the task thou gavest, Lord, complete. 



202 


SILVER RIFTS. 


Grim pain, with sharp edged arrow strikes the heart, 
Sorrows are welded with the joys I meet; 
Through changling days I would still fain- impart 
Thy love, the task thou gavest, Lord, complete. 

Temptation sears me, let me know thy will; 

Pleasures and whims, comerging currents, meet 
Aid those flesh blown wants, O Lord, to kill; 
Teach me the task thou gavest to complete. 

Those maudlin joys can last but for a day; 

A whim has made them with a whim replete. 
Exist I must when whims have crushed this clay; 
Let me the task thou gavest, Lord, complete. 

Thy life is love, my task must be the same. 

An evil word may baneful others greet; 

Once yield to passion, I may light a flame 
With others perish in its constant heat. 

Thou hast the seal, my heart must rise to Thee. 

My soul’s omega in Thee has its seat; 

My task is Thine, since I Thy likeness be; 

Teach me the task Thou gavest to complete. 


SOUL QUESTIONS. 


203 


THE POETS SACRIFICE. 

No blood should stain the poet’s altar fires, 

No smoke or flame, no sacrificial pyre, 

No narrow creed, should mould or make his spires 
As wide as realms of men. 

So should the impulse be that guides his hand; 
Fearless in conflict hours, for right to stand; 
Fearless, though fawned upon, the wrong to brand, 
The poet’s creed, his pen. 

And it his sacrifice to heaven should be; 

He whom the muses prompt shbuld faithfully 
Sing true the lines, the noble symphony 
That he unchains for all eternity. 

Beauty in rythmic psalms the praise of God; 
Beauty so manifold springs from the sod; 

The beauteous love that grace the paths we trod; 
The ways of God and men. 

Passions that burn the brest to fight for right, 
Liberty and justice the sacred light 
Of a just tolerance should stir to might 
Of words a poet’s pen. 

Truth, as he sees it spoken fearlessly, 

What, though Cato fell for being bold? 

And Milton cast from out the favored fold? 

Still through the vast of all eternity, 

The strains ;of their unchained symphony, 

Makes sacrifice of greater immortality. 


204 


SILVER RIFTS. 


HERMIT’S RAVING. 

In the turbulent times of the French Revolution, a 
Parisian of wealth and education having sided with the 
Royalists, was compelled to flee France to save his 
life. Disgusted with the fickleness of man in general 
and soured by the loss of his wealth, he came to Amer¬ 
ica with his three sons, who were but boys. 'Select¬ 
ing an isolated and picturesque spot on the rugged 
Maine coast, he built a cabin in which himself and sons 
resided, leading the life of fishermen. 

The black locks had been coated with the silver 
badge of time, and sons had grown to manhood. Yet 
still they led the life of hermits. The sons went out in 
their fishing smack one calm November morning. A 
terrible storm arose before they could return. The 
smack drifted at the mercy of the storm for some time, 
then was driven on the rocks and wrecked and the 
three young men were drowned. Shortly after the old 
man had received the sad news of the calamity; he 
stands on the doorstep which overlooked the sea. Dark % 
night is without, the sea is being lashed into terrific 
fury by the relentless elements. While forked light¬ 
ning and roars of thunder make a weird scene, and raves 
as follows: 


THE HERMIT’S RAVING. 

Rage on! Oh witch of Neptune’s wrath! 

Smite the angry sea with your scorpion' lash 
Till the furious monster laps heaven with his frothy 
tongue. 

Roll oft! ye deaf’ning thunders 

Till the trembling earth shakes to its very center, 
And force that roaring mass to yield up its captive 
dead. 

Strike, with your crooked arrows, ye lightnings, 

Till ye fathom the deep, and 

With your forked wands cast up my buried sons. 


SOUL QUESTIONS 


205 


Roar! Fash! Shake! 

Spit forth your deadly fires and 
Consume that greedy fiend, 

Till the very stones cry to heaven with thirst. 

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! (mocking laugh) 

The angry powers obey my prayers. 

See the mountains of water roll on and 
Madly dash against that mighty rock. 

Beat them back, oh shaggy cliffs with your clammy fists. 
Ha! Revenge! Revenge! Revenge! 

Beat them back! back! 

Beyond the confines of earth, into the thirsty mouth ot 
hell. 

(A peal of thunder and flash of lightning.) 

Hear! The wrathy God resents my wrongs. 

Bright as the orb of day, his searching eye 
Pierces the bosom of that lashing mass. 

Search on! oh Eye of Fire! 

Burn and scorch the demon 
Till thou findest his prison bars. 

Rent them in twain! Rent them in twain! 

And free my lads. 

The fury ceases; the storm abates. 

(Goes down to the shore, a great wave casts the bodies 
at his feet.) 

Mine! Mine! Mine!—Monster— 

Oh! Neptune’s hag of gluttony, thine 
Is the crime. 


SILVER RIFTS. 


206 


DIVINITIES. 

Isis, Osirus, myths of long ago: 

Jupiter, Diana: names of pomp and power. 

Idol and sun god: men craved but to know 
That which the finite mind could grasp and see, 

And then, like cringing slaves, to fawn and cower 
At what delusion termed divinities. 

Christ came with pitying love to gently lead 
Those who had lost God’s currents faith and love. 
Back to the fount from which doth sweet proceed, 
All that regenerates, good that endures. 
Untrammelled spirits that can reach above 
The thrills, the passion clammors, flesh allures. 
Dominions wrath, the sceptre, sword and crown, 
Hurled at the cross their focused powers of might. 
“My throne is hate,” quoth monarchs with a frown, 
“What creed is this, that teaches/ man to love, 

To spurn my gold, and in dark caves at night 
Steal to their worship? Deathl cannot them move.” 

A ray of light through centuries of dark; 

Christ stilled the tempest of life’s restless sea. 
“Peace, peace on earth good will to men.” Yet hark! 
The plottings of dissemblers, they? that prate 
Of nation’s pride and states our enemy, 

Men must not love for despots thrive on hate. 
Stone gods have moulded hearts as cold as they. 
The love of power! men traded heaven for this. 
Made slaves of freemen, called the farce a play 
When captives moved in chains before their pride. 
Lust, power and vanity, they called them bliss; 
Then cowering, prayed and shuddered as they did. 


SOUL QUESTIONS 


207- 


To-day we say our state a zenith is; 

Knowledge, refinement, liberty, are ours. 

Man mastered earth, lightning’s fire is his; 

Yet he a god has taken to himself 

Worse than stone idols, false as tyrants’ power, 

Earth’s despot god to-day is golden pelf. 

Genius and honor, sink in the scale as naught. 
Fame and statecroft are perched upon a price. 
Ermine and toga, with shekels bright are bought 
Justice and law are twisted round a coin. 

Flesh, bone and reason, an offered sacrifice, 
Man’s evry existence, with gold misjoin. 

Oh God, not all, not all mankind are dross, 

Some still have yearnings vast for thee. 

Some deep have learned the lessons of the cross: 
“Love one another e’en as I have ye; 

Line not your hearts withe knawing love of gold;. 
Keep well thy watch; I will my love unfold.” 


208 


SILVER RIFTS. 


STRINGS OF NATURE’S LYRE. 

Where great waves wash the rigid base 
Of tall cliffs white and gray, 

And sea gulls flit their airy race 
O’er crest of billow spray; 

Along the strand where white waves lay. 
Their love kiss pearled with foam, 

Then creeps in silent ecstacy, 

Back to their ocean homes. 

Upon the hoary mountain* peak, 

Where gray clouds flutter by, 

Or lean like weary pilgrims weak 
From roaming through the sky; 

Along where low-lands cluster ’round 
The green hills’ sloping breast, 

Where flowers weave a tinted crown, 

In dells where wood nymphs rest. 

In earth’s fair dome where sunshine gleams, 
O’er vast domains of day, 

Oh in night’s reign, of stars and dreams, 
When earth in slumbers lay; 

We hear the tuneful measure sweet, 

The strings of nature’s lyre; 

If we but count love’s heart beats, 

’Twill ring the same, calm or fire. 


/T]is(;ellai}eous 


OLD M’GREGOR. 

Where the noble Mississippi, silver winds ’mid hills of 
green 

And the verdant islands cluster, ’mid the water’s rip¬ 
pled sheen; 

’Mid the hills green bowers climbing. 

Up the narrow valley winding, 

Rocky arms rise high above her, 

Stony sides are pressed to shield her, 

Nature smiles and all about her 
Scatters green o’er old McGregor. 

Ere the steam horse puffed and whistled up this val¬ 
ley’s tinted way, 

When the pompous river packet, proudly held com¬ 
mercial sway, 

On the levee there was bustle, 

Travel, trade and negro rustle, 

Thrift and energy had made her, 

Nature bounteous had paid her 
Tribute fair, to old McGregor. 

Peaceful, thrifty and contented in her scope amid the 
hills, 

Dreams of Black Hawk wars around her, patriotism 
and pride instills, 

’Mid the hills green bowers climbing. 

Up the narrow valleys winding, 

Rocky arms rise high above her, 

Stony sides are pressed to shield her, 

Nature smiles and all around her 
Scatters green o’er old McGregor. 



210 


SILVER RIFTS. 


DEWEY OFF CAVITE. 

Fair the city of Manila, 

Rose above the tropic sea, 

While tlhe Spanish fleet lay proudly 
Clustered ’round in majesty. 

Stern and 'placid stretched the sea-coast, 
’Neath a dreamy azure sky, 

From the ships arose the wild boast, 
“Yankee ships must sink or fly.” 

From the north with banners flying, 
Dewey’s fleet came sailing down, 

And the Yankee boys were crying, 

“You are ours, Manilla town.” 

From the shore the palm trees swaying, 
Seemed to love the starry flag; 

Guns and deck were now betraying 
War must take the place of brag. 

Boom! a Spanish gun had challenged; 
Boom! a Yankee shell replied; 

Then a broad-side madly thundered 
From each grim attacking side. 

Oh! the crash, the jar, the thunder, 
While the smoke hung like a pall, 

Groans from ships now rent asunder 
O’er the Spanish cast a thrall. 

When the smoke rose from the battle, 
Cavite fort was silenced well. 

God! What feats the cannons’ rummage 
Made when Spain’s Armada fell. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


211 


How the flames leaped o’er the waters, 
When Mcntejo’s ships went down, 
And his fleet was sunk, or shattered; 
They had lost Manila town. 


THE STAR OF PROMISE. 

How dim, oh star, thy glimmer; of what pale, sickly 
flame 

Is this weak shimmer made; by what impotent name 
Are we to call thy strife? Not Hope, for she flares 
white 

But to deceive. Not Joy, for we have stumbled lame 
Upon her promises. What dim cast hue of light 
Dost thou, oh star, reflect? Not Love; she, fickle 
dame. 

Lies amorous in Fortune’s arms. Oh shame! oh 
shame! 

Call’st it Fortune? she hath become the stomach for 
blight, 

And greed, her sponsor, hath drained the blood of 
love 

To quench the thirst of passion. Art thou then a ghost 
Of some lost spirit /haunting but to reprove? 

Then, oh false stars of love, of peace, of joy, thy boast 
Is but to wreck. Oh for the lamp that will coin 
A flame from heart’s blood! each pulsing human heart 
Will yield its vital fluid to the flame. And love 
New born from sacrifice, will knit part by part 
All human kind. Fraternity! oh sweet, vast word! 
For joy, and peace, and love, are but thy synonyms. 
From out the dead passion-seared past, time-stained 
and blurred, 

Fraternity will light a million mighty lamps. 



212 


SILVER RIFTS. 


DEATH. 

Through the din and confusion, the blast and the blare. 
With never a curse, and never a prayer, 

Invisible fingers snap each faint thread of life. 

Death is gone—and the living bleed most from his 
knife. 


A FARMER’S LETTER. 

From afar there came a letter today, 

From a home away in the west, 

Where a loving sister went years ago, 

With her smiling babe at her breast. 

’Twas a letter of deathless sisterly love; 

“I am dying,” the letter read, 

And I felt a pang and a hunger great, 

To caress and soothe the dear head. 

I am but a farmer, my acres are few, 

I must struggle for daily bread; 

With a family of wee ones about me, 

I must work that they may be fed. 

Though the tears coursed down each / sun-burned 
cheek, 

Yet I’ll hitch the horse to the plow; 

Though I long for the patient sister dear, 

That lay far away dying now. 

I will plow into each inky furrow, 

Earnest tears that my eyes must shed, 

While over the mountains my heart must go, 

Since that loving letter read: 



MISCELLANEOUS. 


213 


“I am dying; oh, brother, I loved you much; 

We will meet on the other shore, 

Where dear father and mother went years ago, 
To God’s home in the vast evermore.” 


DECEIT AND LOVE. 

Deceit may laugh ’neath ruby lips, 

And rest ’neath eyes of lustre; 

But Time unmasks the tutor’d smile, 

And points where traitors cluster. 

How sweet where love in truth is vested; 
Honor and faith their vigils keep; 

Naught with the mire, deceit infested, 
Rich is the harvest love will reap. 


MOMENT THOUGHTS. 

Pause! There is space in a moment’s time 
To crush the thought that fires the brain; 

One moment, grasped from false desire, 

Is as deluge to the spreading fire; 

And all the baneful waste from forward crime, 

If gauged by wise moment thoughts would wane. 




214 


SILVER RIFTS. 


WHAT IS LOVE? 

“What is love?” the skeptic cynic asks. 

“ ’Tis the mother of countless fanciful tasks.” 

Yet e’en as he speaks, he partly yearning, peers. 

He should gather his answer from maids, not fears. 
Not from the matter of logic and reason, 

But should pluck the rich flow’r when bloom’s in 
season, 

And thus learn the sweet lesson Which nature gave, 
That a life should be love, from cradle to grave. 

Love is a fiber; and vast it is spun; 

Electric, the touch of its currents that run; 

Binding the mother to the babe on her breast, 

Luring the bird from the limb to the nest, 

Thrilling the hearts of the lovers with bliss. 

Ah! who would not love, since ’.tis lovers that kiss! 
Ah! who would n'ot murmur when passion’s aglow: 
“I do love thee tenderly, loving thee so.” 


SUCCESS. 

Failure, the world said; circumstances had frowned; 

Efforts well planned, had' come to naught, it seemed. 
Death came; and lo! a bending angel crowned 
With victory’s laurel wreath this careworn brow. 
Success, relentless honor dearly bought 
With frowns; the fickle world did fair endow 
This sterling spirit, truth had always ruled. 

Earth, bane adversity had sternly schooled 
To fan the soul with patient spirit wings, 

Till death would kind unwind the binding strings. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 


215 


THE SUNSET HOUR. 

The sun is down, and peasants homeward tread; 

The fireside hours repay the day of toil; 

The herathstone shrine, where loving words are said, 
Is hallowed with the cheer gained from the soil. 


THE RIVER OF DREAMS. 

Unheralded the white-winged bird of dream, 
Sang sweet one tuneful song; 

Then on frail pinions through a boundless space, 
He bore the poet’s soul to heights of grace, 
Where beating rythms of some Elysian stream, 
Echo now far, now near, along 
In tune with notes of dream birds’ song, 

The wonderful crest serene, 

At the brink of the river of dream. 

Harmonious through channels of the soul, 

A river flood was wrought; 

Fancy’s pale pebbles, like glimmering stars, 
Shone from the breast of the sand-gilded bars. 
The musical rest of the river’s roll, 

Oh, beautiful ripples of thought! 

Oh, the flash of the jewels, caught 
From the arms of the crystal stream, 

The beautiful river of dream! 



216 


SILVER RIFTS. 


POEMS OF PASSION VS. POEMS OF 
NATURE. 

There have been numerous articles in the magazines 
of recent years deprecating or treating flippantly the 
poems which deal with nature alone, unless allied to 
some revelation of human passion. 

One very interesting writer in a recent number of a 
prominent magazine, after eulogizing the poems and a 
poet dealing with that which portrays phases of human 
existence, writes deprecatingly as follows: 

“We /have passed the time for sickly sentimentalizing 
over nature, and only verse makers of the lower order 
write such things as Wordsworth’s ‘Heart Leap Well.’ 
Today the facts of the natural would are interesting 
accordingly as they touch upon life or clear up its 
problems, and the poet must be interesting in nature 
simply because of its human revelations.” 

This is rather scathing, hard on the large number of 
writers, past and present, who moved men’s souls, their 
efffforts teaching that deep in the heart of nature lies 
the heart of God. 

No writer can describe the beauties of nature with 
an artistic touch without moving the heart of the 
reader,' unless that heart is calloused. There is a thrill 
of ecstacy as one sees the realistic photograph of some 
beautiful natural grouping, bringing to his recollection, 
as it does, an enchanting scene of the past or a desire 
of future fulfillment. 

“But I will haste and from each bough and brake 
Each plant and juciest gourd will pluck such choice 
To entertain our angel guest, as he, 

Beholding, shall confess that here on earth 
God hath dispensed His bounties as in heaven.” 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


2I7 

No sensible person will deny that when the beauties 
of nature are vividly described and the incident of 
human passion is allied to it, the effect is delightful. 
But it seems equally inconsistent that one who has 
often drank in the beauties of nature in a ravishing 
scene can feed unimpressed when he reads the lines 
that photograph so truly, the picture that pleased him. 

When sorrow all our hearts would ask, 

We will not shun our daily task 
And hide ourselves for calm. 

The herbs we seek to heal our woe 
Familiar by our pathways grow; 

Our common air is balm.” 


Could anything be more beautiful than the lines 
from Tennyson’s “Two Voices?” as follows: 

And forth into the field I went 
And nature’s living motion lent 
The pulse of hope to discontent. 

I wondered at the beauteous hours, 

The slow result of winter’s showers; 

You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 

I wondered as I passed along, 

The woods were filled so full of song 
There seemed no room for sense of wrong. 

So variously seemed all things wrought, 

I marveled how the mind was brought 
To anchor by one gloomy thought. 


218 


SILVER RIFTS. 


I have a lingering suspicion that one who cannot 
appreciate the beauties of nature, as portrayed in an 
artistic poem, has something of the sublime missing in 
his nature. 

There may be, even is, some sickly sentimentalizing 
in verses of nature; there certainly are plenty of verses 
of passion creep into print of the sickly sentimentaliz¬ 
ing stamp, but shall we fail to discriminate? These 
verses can’t be called poems, nor have they the artist 
touch. They are generally of the fugitive order, and 
things would come to a sad pass when these branches 
of genius disputed for precedence in a cause that is 
common to both, for poems of nature and poems of 
passion are equal, since they both portray the sympa¬ 
thies, whether of the human or natural order. Who 
would criticise a beautiful sylvan painting from a mas¬ 
ter artist, picturing the beauties of wood and flower, 
and stream and dell, with, perchance, the listening 
stag and soaring eagle, because no human being is in 
sight? Surely no artist would do so. 

Is not art in all its branches the same, the picture 
drawn with the same ecstatic touch in words, as on 
canvas? The picture, whether pertaining to nature 
alone or grouped with plans of huamn life, has equal 
value as a work of art. It touches our sympathies, 
and no lover of the beautiful can fail to appreciate the 
beauties of flower, of stream, of woodland, and it is 
ridiculous to call it sickly sentimentalizing when one 
does. 

Who has failed to be thrilled by a beautiful sunrise? 
Then who could fail to appreciate Drayton’s beautiful 
lines: 

“Then from the burnished gate the goodly, glittering 
east, 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


219 


Gilds every mountain' top, which late the humorous 
night 

Bespangled had, with pearls to please the morning’s 
sight, 

On which the mirthful choir with their clear open 
throats, 

Unto the graceful morn, so strain their warbling notes 
That hills and vailleys ring, and e’en the echoing air 
Seems all composed of songs, about them everywhere.” 

What a sense of soothing harmony is presented to 
us; it seems to still the troublings that gnaw about 
our daily life, and draw out the nobility within us. 
Art is too vast, too ennobling to discriminate against 
true forms. Leave to the poet of passion the honors 
he has won and crown him with laurels, but let our 
hearts be large enough to press the fragrant rose to 
our lips and scent the aroma of woods in bloom. Let 
not the poet of nature cry in pain: 

“What wonder I was all unwise 
To shape the song for your delight; 

Like long-tail birds of paradise, 

They float through heaven and cannot light.” 


220 


SILVER RIFTS. 


ASSUMPTION SONG. 

O irridescent light, 

Halo of heavenly ihalls; 

Motherly brow so joyously bright, 

How many lamps from heaven’s walls 
Angel hands are holding for thee! 

How many strains from heavenly choirs, 
How many notes from heavenly lyres, 

Are wafted the spheres along, 

Singing the great Assumption song? 

God draws thee to Himself, 

Up from the would of sorrow and pain, 
Untainted, oh, Virgin, without stain 
Of our earth’s passions and sins of pelf. 


THE GYPSY QUEEN. 

Great trees with swaying branches bending, shed 
Their shadows o’er a hyacinth bed. 

A nook near the window bore a statue old; 

Rare, graceful in workmanship, in gesture bold. 

A murmuring fountain lent its lullaby, 

And lured the long-necked swan to plash and ply. 

A bridge! where climbing ivies crept and crept 
Reached o’er a lake where white pond lilies slept, 

And deer winked lazily through their soft brown eyes, 
While zephyrs from some Persian paradise 
Their drowsy eyelids sealed with restful sleep, 

And hushed the lowing herds upon the steep. 

A valley such as Israelites dreamed of old, 

Should grace the bosom of their promised fold, 
Stretched far away till hazes blue responded. 



WISCELEANEOUS. 


221 


Such was the scene where the roving Gypsy stood. 
This Persian ground, each fair and pregnant rood, 
Was once her father’s heralded domain; 

Ere did this rival lord with force constrain 
His splendor, and possess this castle rare, 

And flaunt his pennant on our Persian air. 

Under a bonnet hiding shaggy hair, 

From 'out the dryness of a face not fair, 

Burnt, ah pierced aind burnt those orbs jet black, 
That flashed with anger or with tears alack. 

Age could not destroy the luster of such dart, 

Or time relax the pulsings of this heart. 

She stood tragic, stately in her wrath, 

Like spectre when it human bearing hath. 

Not dreaming, still she draws a picture 
With her ancestors in the castle fair; 

When foreign hordes like locusts spread their blight 
Down the fertile valley, from the mountain height, 
With cannons’ roar and tread of mailed feet. 

With madness 1 of their bloody sport they greet 
Her father’s fearless band; aye, aye, and hers; 
Defending well her father’s home and theirs. 

But heroism, valor—these could not stand 
Against the legion the foreigners command. 

They fell in countless numbers; their blood 
The crimson blossom on each native rood, 

The fierce huzzah of tyrants their funeral knell. 
Death was the better part, and glad they fell. 

And those who still remained, from death or chains, 
Roamed far away o’er wastes of arid plains, 

Across the frowning waters of the Dead Sea, 

Under the scorching sun of Egypt’s dynasty. 

This exile band knew not of home or rest, 

Save few the lonely hours of night, when blest 
With quietude, their weary, troubled brains 


222 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


Wove pleasant dreams and heard their homely strains. 
Time handed the tale from sire to son, 

A priceless heritage to still hand on. 

Centuries had passed since exile claimed her father’s 
tears, 

And now, through mists of long departed years, 

She sees the glory of her ancient home. 

This Gypsy queen, long used to constant roam, 

Stood where her father’s blood had soiled the green— 
Where dying groans were lost in victor’s spleen. 

She sees the spectre Death each eyelid seal, 

And hears her noble father’s last appal 

“Death! victory! or captives’ chains; 

Death! Victory! or exile o’er the plains; 

Rest with your fathers, or Freedom claim; 

Free by thy children, or crimson stain 
This grassy carpet with heroes’ blood! 

Rest with your fathers, or here acclaim. 

We shall possess our native rood!” 

She tells her story to the lordly prince; 

He smiles incredulous, and points her hence 
To tables set with sumptuous feast. 

She spurs his lordship’s proud behest, 

Flinging defiance from her flashing eyes; 

An end of woe she madly prophesies; 

And as she weeping joins her swarthy band. 

Looks back to cry a curse on those behind. 

In other fields nigh ardent lovers draw, 

With youthful hope to hear their future cast; 

And listen with amazement and an awe, 

As she predicts the future, resurrects the past. 

Straight stands the figure, as the cypress gaunt. 
Ghostly, and stately, its mosses flaunt. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


22 £ 


Time’s finger marked and scored the passing years; 
Haggard and haughty, no tribal broils she fears. 
Firm in her power, she sways her hardy band; 

No sovereign rules with firmer, stronger hand 
And when the camp-fire adds its halo bright, 

And sparks soar up to reach the stars of night. 

She tells her story with dramatic air, 

And each faithful subject drops a tear. 




224 


SILVER RIFTS. 


A CANYON FLOWER. 


It was sunset in Beaver Canon. The setting sun 
cast brilliant rays with all the usual grandeur of sunset 
in the far West. Great clay banks of red, yellow and 
brown clays caught the reflection until the entire desert 
panorama seemed ablaze with reflected light. To the 
west the snow-capped mountains of Western Wyoming 
rose rugged peaks that glared like marble columns. 
Desert though the region is, it is not without its pe¬ 
culiar beauty; true, not of that class of beauty that is 
most admired. Few accustomed to the luxurious veg¬ 
etation in the East could be induced to inhabit it for 
other than mercenary reasons. Great banks of highly 
colored clays and lava beds stretch in broken chains as 
far as the eye can follow. These the hand of Nature 
has blended together with the most perfect harmony 
of tints; as a great rainbow these hills stretch until lost 
in vapors. On either side stretches a broad expanse 
of sage brush plains. Not a tree is in sight, vegetation 
seems practically extinct. Some of the clay banks be- - 
come so high as to partake of the dignity of low moun¬ 
tains; in such instances they are generally capped with 
rock; the canons that lay between are wild and grand 
in their beauty. The extremes of nature are always 
grand; here the very desolation; becomes sublime. 

Beaver Canon is undoubtedly the most picturesque 
in this locality. Great walls of rock covered with a 
yellowish moss rise almost perpendicular for several 
hundred feet. Nestled deep down in the canon, perched 
on a massive rock that seemed itself in doubt of its 
stationary qualities a cabin had been built. No other 
human habitation was in sight. So picturesque, so 



MISCELLANEOUS. 


225 


isolated the location, one might dream away life secure 
from the contact of civilization as the blue peaks of 
yon high mountains in the East or the barren snow¬ 
capped ridges in the West. Suddenly the clatter of 
horse’s hoofs rang through he canon. The door of the 
cabin opened and an old mam, whose form was stooped 
with a load of years, stepped out upon the rock, and 
placing his hand above his eyes to protect them from 
the dazzling sun, gazed eagerly down the canon. The 
old man smiled as he noted the faultless figure of the 
young woman who' mow dismounted and led her pony 
to his shed. He still stood and watched her mount the 
steps up the rock till she stood by his side. He pressed 
her youthful face to his as be said: “Ah, my precious 
girl, life is a blank when your merry voice and laugh¬ 
ing eyes are not to be heard and seen.” 

The young woman lovingly returned the embrace, 
and answered: “Grandfather, see the sunset. Since a 
child I have watched that glorious monarch of the skies 
light up the colored rocks and clays till they rivalled 
the Aurora Borealis of Northern nights, and each tune 
the beauty seemed new, the scene most grand.” 

“Loyal to your lonely home,” the old man smiled as 
he spoke. “Yet it is not lonely when Nature speaks 
so forcibly as she does to my dear Leorne.” He 
pressed her hand and entered the house. 

Leorne still stood on the doorstep and gazed on the 
scene about her; truly it was beautiful. The crescent 
of the sinking^sun was just visible over the mountains. 
The walls of rock that adorned the sides of the canon 
were resplendent with colored reflections. When the 
sun was entirely hidden by the Western snowy peaks, 
Leorne turned her gaze on the smoky blue summits to 
the East; a longing look crept into her face and she 
muttered in a low voice “What lies beyond those 


226 


SILVER RIFTS. 


veiled peaks, valleys, more mountains and rivers wide, 
great cities with a crowded population and amusements 
for every idle hour; and what am I but a wild moun¬ 
tain flour that blooms to die unknown when my season 
is gone?” She crushed a lingering sigh and 'then 
quickly added: “But no, I am wrong, has not grand¬ 
father told me of the sin, deception and fickleness of 
the crowded city. I am happy here with grandfather.” 
She brushed aside the straggling, golden locks and en¬ 
tered the house. 

The appearance of the interior of the home certainly 
did not indicate ignorance or isolation. A neat but un¬ 
pretentious bookcase was well packed with a high class 
of literature. On a table a pile of well-worn but recent 
magazines, proved that the inmates were not ignorant 
of the happenings of the world in which they lived. 
Dainty knickknacks hung about the walls, and a num¬ 
ber of unframed paintings and etchings indicated a re¬ 
fined mind had not been idle. Here where the elderly 
gentleman had been tutor he found a ready pupil. And 
since his experience and learning were: acute, he found 
in the general atmosphere of repose that his efforts had 
not been in vain. 

The following day after her household duties were 
done, Leorne put the saddle on her faithful pony, Bert, 
and was soon rapidly riding down the canon on her 
daily tour. She had just rounded an abrupt turn in the 
road, which was very narrow at this point, when she 
heard the clatter of approaching horse’s hoofs. Sur¬ 
prised at such an unusuol occurrence, she pulled her 
pony to a walk. A gentleman on horseback rapidly 
turned the curve, a large Newfoundland dog, which 
was running ahead, sprang at Leorne’s horse and gave 
several vicious barks. Frightened at this unusual oc¬ 
currence, he reared badly. However, she was an ex- 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


227 


pert rider and could not be thrown. The danger lay 
in the close proximity to a deep precipice that led to 
the canon down below. The stranger recognizing the 
danger sprang from his horse and seizing Leorne’s 
frightened animal by the bridle, suggested that she had 
better dismount till the dangerous pass had been cross¬ 
ed. Realizing her danger, she sprang from the saddle 
with such agile grace, the eye of the stranger sparkled 
with admiration. He led the horse safely across the 
pass and assisted Leorne to remount; at the same time 
offering an earnest apology for being the unknowing 
cause of her inconvenience. 

She thanked him for his kindness and was about to 
ride on, but he still held her hand and said: “You will 
forgive my boldness, fair Miss, but in this lonely region 
intelligence and congeniality are so rarely met with 
that one is loath to be satisfied with a glimpse as from 
the fairy realms. Or is it through aversion that you are 
so eager to leave?” 

Leorne blushed slightly, yet she looked most charm¬ 
ing in this bloom of innocence which so delicately 
tinged the lily skin. “I do not wish to be rude or dis¬ 
courteous; 1 am very grateful for your kindness, but 
we are strangers, and I question the propriety of a 
prolonged conversation.” 

“True, we are strangers, but since conditions have 
made it impossible to have been previously acquainted 
and circumstances have thrown us together, may we not 
be friends?” 

Leorne let her eyes rest upon the frank, manly and 
honest face before her; she felt its open beauty, those 
eyes spoke volumes for the honesty of his purpose, and 
she replied: “I generally drive to the Red Buttes about 
two miles distant every morning. To prove I have no 


228 


SILVER RIFTS. 


antipathy for you, I shall not cut short my customary 
route.” 

They rode on side by side, the stranger was sur¬ 
prised and delighted at the ease and grace of conversa¬ 
tion his fair companion) possessed; he was also, pleased 
with the innocent boldness with which she expressed 
her ideas. A short lull in the conversation occurred a 5 * 
they neared the Buttes. Leornie turned her horse’s 
head towards home, and was somewhat surprised though 
inwardly pleased when her companion did likewise. 

The stranger glanced frankly at her and said: “l 
hope you will not be offended at my introducing my¬ 
self; I am Captain Lane of the 14th United States In¬ 
fantry. We have been stationed at Fort Custer, but I 
am now on a six months’ furlough and have been pros¬ 
pecting in the mountains with a company of friends. 
We are camped some eight miles from here and I find 
it encessary to ride to the station for my mail. Would 
you be offended if I asked your name?” 

“My name,” she frankly replied, “My name is Le- 
orne. It is all the name I have ever been addressed by, 
though my name to you should be Miss Caldwell.” 

They were nearing the turn in the road which 
brought her cabin in view; she pulled her horse to a 
standstill, and extending her hand said: “Captain 
Lane, I must bid you farewell. Let me thank you 
again most cordially for your kindness.” 

He colored slightly, and replied: “Am I then forbid¬ 
den to accompany you home, Miss Caldwell?” 

A look of sadness crept into her face as she an¬ 
swered: “I beg of you not to be offended with me, 
Captain Lane, I mean no discourtesy, but it would be 
impossible for me to allow you to accompany me home 
My grandfather would be greatly offended with me for 
my action.” 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


229 


“Then we are to meet no more?' 

“It is even so, Captain Lane. I would be frank 
with you. If I were to consult my own desires I should 
be pleased to acknowledge you as my friend and ac¬ 
quaintance; but in this respect I am not my own judge 
—farewell.” At utterance of the last word Leorne, urged 
her pony on and was soon out of sight. 

The following day it rained; one of those down¬ 
pours that sometimes sweep upon the usually thirsty 
Western plains. For several days after the roads were 
in such a condition as to be impassable and Leorne had 
to abondon her daily ride. It was just one week later 
that she again urged her pony over the course she usu¬ 
ally took for her morning ride. She was unusually hap¬ 
py that day. Her mellow voice rang out on the balmy 
air with the heartiness that marks the young and the in¬ 
nocent. When she had reached the Red Buttes she 
dismounted and sat on one of the rocks silent for some 
time, then commenced to sing one of those old English 
love songs that move the soul with their plaintive ear¬ 
nestness. She did not notice a figure dismount from his 
horse in the rear and approach. Hearing a movement 
close by her side she stopped singing quickly and arose. 
Then recognizing Captain Lane she bowed and smiled. 
He approached her and extended his hand. She hesi¬ 
tated a moment and then gave him hers. He held it 
and looked wistfully into her large blue eyes. 

“Leorne—Miss Caldwell—you said we must meet no 
more; but after a week’s reflection I have come to you 
to tell you if we meet no more, one heart will be haunt¬ 
ed through life with a fair, frank face and your farewell 
will be a funeran knell that will ring in my ears till they 
cease to become sensitive to sound. Miss Caldwell, I 
beg of you to reconsider and give me an. opportunity 
to prove myself. To love and be haunted thruogh life 


230 


SILVER RIFTS. 


with a hunger that wild not down even! in the presence 
of a certainty of a failure to achieve is a hard lot to 
thoughtlessly ordain for a human heart.” 

Leorne had listened amazed. She looked directly 
into his rich brown eyes and, saw there the love that 
spoke more than the lips had said. She felt a heaving 
at her own heart and she then knew that this almost 
stranger had entered into her life and being as perhaps 
no man would ever enter again. She hesitated, some¬ 
what embarrassed, and replied: “Captain Lane, I im¬ 
plore you do not believe me heartless. I am not the 
master of my own heart at present. I will be frank 
with you. Since I was able to lisp, my grandfather, 
who has been my only friend, companion and tutor, 
and who has seen much of the fickleness of the world, 
has impressed upon my mind the deception of man. 
This deception has driven him to these Western wilds 
and soured his nature till he is not responsible for his 
feelings on this subject. He has taken an oath that no 
man shall ever cross his threshold while he lives. His 
eccentricity on this subject has gone so far as demand¬ 
ing an agreement on my part that I shall never marry 
while he lives. I fully realize that on this subject he is 
not sane or rational; but he is all I have ever had to 
love and I have linked around him all the affections of 
a warm young heart. He is perfectly rational on all 
other subjects and it would kill him if I broke my 
promise. Therefore I will keep it ,as filial love and duty 
dictates that I should support his declining years.” 

Captain Lane had listened attentively to the tale of 
eccentricity and slowly replied: “But most devoted 
daughter, what does your'grandfather suppose will be¬ 
come of his child when his protecting arm is gone? 
You say he is all you have.” 

Leorne slightly shuddered at the thought. Her eyes 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


231 


moistened as she spoke. “He is all I have, all I have 
ever known, father, mother, sister, brother were never 
vouchsafed my sight. Grandfather may be unreasona¬ 
ble in this request, but I will abide by his wish, and 
when he is gone there still remains that greater, suprem- 
er power of the Infinite Ruler to protect and provide 
for the weak. Do not again seek me, Captain Lane, it 
will be in vain. Farewell, Captain Lane, do not think 
i'll of me— farewell!” 

Before hel had' thoroughly collected his thoughts the 
fair vision had fled, and the receding clatter of horse’s 
hoofs faded as did the hopes in his aching heart. 

The warm days of summer were succeeded by the 
crisp atmosphere of fall, yet no trees cast their gaudy 
banners to the wind, no leaves lay piled upon the earth 
in rainbow hues. 'All was desolate, yet no more so 
than it had been in May. The sagebrush was still there 
and the banks of clay. It was a raw, clammy day. All 
the previous night a light flickered from the window 
of the Caldwell cabin that was dimly visible in the dis¬ 
tance. Yet no more dim than the lamp of life that 
flickered in the heart of Leorne’s aged grandfather. The 
day dawned with the promise of rain or sleet. Its com¬ 
fortless sulllen light fell upon the upturned, marble-like 
face of the old man. Life had fled. 

The following day Leorne had driven to the station 
to secure the necessities for the burial of her grand¬ 
father and the services of two acquaintances to assist 
in the interment. Just at the foot of he great rock whose 
summit had held much of the life of the old man, they 
dug a grave. The last clod of earth had been piled upon 
the new-made mound. The men, eager to return from 


232 


SILVER RIFTS. 


a work they had little interest! in, received their recom¬ 
pense, and after promising to send their wives to call 
on Leorne drove away. 

Alone with her grief she knelt on the new-made 
mound and gave way to her great grief. Hearing a 
long-drawn sigh she rose and felt her hand drawn back 
between two warm palms. She scarce dare look. Her 
beating heart told her who held them. She heard a 
tender, manly voice in subdued tones: “Leorne, you 
are alone in the world now, my arm is strong, my heart 
is warm, let me by thy protector. I love you, Leorne, 
let me share thy life.” 

No answer came, but the silent tears and heaving 
bosomftold him that he was loved in return. In the 
warm embrace of love’s first kiss neither heard or no¬ 
ticed the bowlder fall from out the wall of rock and 
lodge upon the new-made grave. The sun brushed the 
somber clouds away and kissed the tinted walls and seal¬ 
ed the fervent vows of love. God had provided a pro¬ 
tector for the living and Nature yielded a (monument 
for the dead. 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


233 


ROMANCE OF THE DALTONS. 

‘‘Here is one of Jane Porter’s novels, Mrs. Dalton; 
it’s pretty well worn, but the price corresponds,” said 
the keeper of a dingy old second-hand store, as he 
lifted a copy of “Thaddeus of Warsaw” from a pile of 
old books in all stages of mutilation and wear. 

Mrs. Dalton hastily looked the book over and after 
assuring herself that the pages were all there and read¬ 
able she inquired nervously, “How much for this?” 

“That book is always a good seller, but as the cover 
is about gone you may have it for twenty cents,” the 
bookman replied, handing another possible customer a 
rusty copy of “Monte Cristo” to inspect. 

With the same nervousness formerly portrayed, 
Mrs. Dalton fumbled about her pocketbook and finally 
succeeded ini taking therefrom the 'necessary twenty 
cents. Then, hastily closing the now empty pocket- 
book, she seized the bundles she had deposited on the 
counter and left the place. 

Passing up a narrow, dingy street, she walked rap¬ 
idly past many rows of rickety, smoky brick tenement 
houses and turning into one of the dingiest of them 
she took a key from her pocket and, unlocking the 
door, entered. The room was sparely furnished, con¬ 
taining a dilapidated cook stove, a cupboard in which 
were some cooking utensils and a few plain China or 
glass dishes. These, with two chairs and a bed, com¬ 
pleted the furnishings of the room, save for the small 
alarm clock that stood upon the table. 

Laying 1 her bundles upon the table she murmured 
with a sigh: “There will be no meat to-morrow, but 
Jamie, dear, must read.” 

Then seizing the well-worn volume she opened a 



234 


SILVFK RIFTS. 


door and entered a medium sized room, carpeted with 
a soiled rag carpet and containing a much dented heat¬ 
ing stove, a single bed, two chairs and a table which 
was strewn with many dilapidated and soiled books and 
papers. At the window a boy, probably fifteen years 
of age, was steated in a large arm chair which might 
be propelled at the wish of the occupant by two large 
wheels. The boy was sitting, his elbow resting on the 
arms of his chair, a book spread before him in which 
he seemed very much interested when his mother en¬ 
tered. 

His legs hung down and rested on a stool. He was 
evidently a helpless cripple. The lower limbs were 
shrivled and distorted, rendering them incapable of sus¬ 
taining the boy’s weight. Mrs. Dalton was wont to 
answer when questioned of her son, “Jamie was such; a 
promising lad till the rheumatism disabled him,” and 
the boy himself bore her out in the assertion. He had 
a low, smooth, thoughtful forehead, around which 
clustered waves of nut-brown hair. He had deep blue, 
dreamy eyes, ; a delicately chiseled nose, and red lips 
which appeared the redder, as the blue eyes did the 
blue eyes the bluer, from the whitness of the plump 
round face. 

As Mrs. Dalton entered ' the room Jamie laid the 
book he had been reading aside and offered his red lips 
to receive the proffered kiss. 

“How is my laddie, dearie, to-night?” she said as 
she handed him the rusty volume and opened the win¬ 
dow to let in some fresh air; yet the air that came in 
upon then* seemed but little purer than the atmosphere 
within. 

“First rate to-day, mamma. The book was good,” 
he said as he took the worn book from her hand and 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


235 


scanned it ravenously, with the avidity of the book 
worm that he was. 

His mother returned to the kitchen to prepare the 
evening meal. It was 1 not an arduous duty to perform, 
and when ’twas done she wheeled Jamie out to the table 
which contained some buns and butterine with a ring 
of bologna sausage and two steaming cups of tea. She 
sighed as she stepped into the adjoining room to put 
a few sticks of wood in the stove, “And no meat for my 
Jamie to-morrow (Sunday), and no work until Tues¬ 
day. It’s a hard world I’d be leaving him in if I died 
to-morrow.” Then stroking her wrist she continued, 
“And the rheumatism is stiffening me here.” She sat 
for a few moments gazing blankly into space; then 
arising she seated herself beside Jamie at the table. 

This was her happy hour of the day as she sat and 
listened to her boy repeat the story he had been reading 
with all his youthful animation, enhanced with little 
strange bits of his imagination. It was indeed astonish¬ 
ing how accuraely his mind retained the details of what 
he had read. She was happy. This was the only real 
happiness that crept into her life, when the powerful 
blue eyes of her boy glowed with pleasure and he de¬ 
scribed what he had been reading with language beyond 
his years. 

After the frugal meal had been partaken of and the 
dishes had been washed and put away Mrs. Dalton sat 
near the fire and busied herself stitching and mending 
some of Jamie’s well-worn clothes. She prided herself 
always on his appearance, for while her time was al¬ 
most entirely taken up by the labor of providing bread 
for the two, yet she would never neglect Jamie, though 
she burned the midnight oil to provide for him. 

Jamie had finished reading the book that had oc¬ 
cupied his mind during the day and in hi's lap he held 


236 


SILVER RIFTS. 


the (latest volume, “Thaddeus of Warsaw.” His satis¬ 
faction was akin to that which the miser feds in re¬ 
viewing his hoarded gold. They bad chatted for some 
time upon different things, and as the conversation be¬ 
gan to lag he scanned the chapters carefully, noting the 
headline's as a general would reconnoiter his skirmish 
lines for to-morrow’s battle. 

He had turned about half the pages when he noticed 
that two of the leaves were stuck together. After strug 
gling for some time to open them, sio as not to mutilate 
the reading matter, he succeeded in pulling the two 
leaves apart, and there between the two pages exposed 
to view lay an enevlope browned with age. Without 
reading the address the boy took from the envelope its 
contents, an old-fashioned tintype of a young woman 
and a lock of auburn hair. Then turning the envelope 
over and reading the address he cried, “Why see, 
mamma; see what I have found in this book! And the 

envelope—why it reads, ‘J ames Dalton, no - street, 

Harlem, N. Y.’ Mamma, that is my name.” 

Mrs. Dalton had sprung to her feet and seizing the 
envelope, hair and photograph from her son’s hand, she 
examined them closely. There was a pallor in her face 
and a quiver about her mouth, and her hands were 
trembling violently. 

After gazing at the tintype and hair for some time, 
she placed them back in the envelope, and raising it 
close to the light tried to decipher the date of the post¬ 
mark, but the blurred numbers she could not decipher. 
She placed the enevlope in her bosom saying: “Maybe 
old Simons, the bookseller, will know the owner.” 

She continued her work, but things seemed to be 
swimming before her eyes; several times the merciless 
needle penetrated the flesh of her fingers and quickly 
the little drop of blood gushed to the surface. “But 


IMISCELEANEOUS. 


2 37 


Jamie must not know,” she thought, and so continued 
to go through the motions of sewing, though her heart 
was beating wildly and leaping fiercely against the walls 
that held it. 

Jamie anxiously followed his mother’s action with 
hi's eyes. Never before had he seen that strange look 
of suffering and pain upon his mother’s face. She had 
always reserved her brightest smiles for him. He was 
anxious toi have these strange mysteries solved, but 
noting the look upon his mother’s face, he concluded 
to wait until another time. 

A few hours later, when Jamie lay sleeping quietly, 
Mrs. Dalton took from he,r breast the age-browned en¬ 
velope, and taking therefrom the tintype and hair gazed 
long and earnestly 'upon them. The stern past with its 
hateful memories swept like a flood upon her vision. 

She pictured her happy Vermont home, with its circ¬ 
ling verdant hills and the rippling, laughing stream that 
tumbled at her door. From the lilac, with its fragrant 
bloom, the robin and the linnet sang the mellifluent 
notes of) springtime’s sweetest siong, the tender-strained 
lullabys, o’er their callow, nested young. From the tall 
pine on the mountain side, the cuckoo called its oft 
repeated, plaintive mote of melancholy; while the night¬ 
ingale, with beak pointed to the skies, sang the sw.eet 
melody from the blending notes which the moon to her 
is so 1 prone to unfold. She seemed to hear the merry 
laugh and look into the dark, passionate eyes of him 
whom she had never doubted. 

’Tw-as then that the tempter came, a beautiful crea¬ 
ture with liquid blue eyes and golden hair, and cherry 
lips, that seemed curved but to kiss. The slender, grace¬ 
ful figure, that had twined ’round her husband's heart. 
And then— 

She pressed her hands to her temples, whispering. 


238 


SILVER RIFTS. 


‘“Why go over those horrible scenes again.” But the 
scene she had just participated in had resurrected the 
ghost of the past, and she continued her train of 
thought: “I wonder what was her fate, this Camille, 
for whom he deserted me; surely Providence must 
punish such sin.” 

She gazed at the sleeping boy. “He was but a babe 
in my arms when my husband left me. Oh, the shame 
of it! How gladly I fled from my mountain home wiit'h 
its old familiar scenes and buried myself here in this 
great city, with the untold poverty with which it has 
surrounded me; and this was fourteen years ago. Life 
has been a bitter struggle since then; it has been work, 
work, work, stitching and washing, and just keeping 
soul and body together in the damp, clammy, contagion 
breeding tenement of the great New York.” 

Again her eyes rested on the sleeping boy. “ ’Twas 
this that made him so, my Jamie. The delicate bones 
were seized by the demon rheumatism, and now—” 

She knelt beside the sleeping child and wept. “And 
now, God take him before I go, I have not the heart 
to leave so frail a love behind. Thank God he does not 
know. To Jamie his father died fourteen years ago.” 

Like a vision from the grave this message had come 
to her, and this picture, why it was her own likeness, 
and the hair was from her own glossy locks before the 
gray had crept among them. For a long time she 
knelrtj thus. Occupation had partly drowned her hate 
and grief, but now all barriers were down and in the 
face of this memento of the past, the pain and the hate 
of a wronged heart was dominant. 

From the tall spires of a distant church tower, the 
clock was striking the hour. It was midnight. Like 
one in a dream she arose and retired for the night. 

A plain, massive gray stone house in Harlem, stands 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


239 


close to the walk on a populous street. The exterior 
of the lower story has a deserted appearance, the blinds 
are drawn tightly. The curtains are down. The entire 
exterior of this story has about it the air of desertion, 
seculsion or gloom. 

In bold contrast to this gloom of the lower story is 
the upper one, where the blinds are thrown back letting 
in a flood of light through large modern windows, with 
great panes of plate glass. 

Though everything about the furnishings of the 
rooms is very old-fashioned, they are cheerful and in 
bold contrast to the semi-darkness of the first floor. 
The entire front part of this story is allotted to one 
large room, which was evidently intended for a library 
and study. In many places the walls were shelved off 
and laden with many volumes of books of all sizes, 
some bearing the imprint of great age and others ap¬ 
parently fresh from the bookseller. About the tables 
of the room were piled many books and papers old and 
new, and several large bookcases contained the well 
bound volumes of most of the leading magazines of the 
day for fifteen years back; a sight to thrill with joy the 
lover of research. In fact, books seemed to be the rul¬ 
ing passion of the occupant of this room. 

At a desk near the window, in the brightest part of 
the room, sat a man probably forty-five years of age. 
He had a dark dreamy visage, made doubly dark by a 
heavy growth of wavy black hair and beard mixed with 
gray. His dark liquid eyes were full of passion and 
impulse, yet were careworn and had a troubled, restless 
expression. In front of him stood a vase filled with 
beautiful Marieshal Nial roses, whose fragrance filled the 
room. 

He had been writing and it seemed as though his 
mind had become sluggish, for his pen was poised in 


240 


SILVER RIFTS. 


an indecisive manner and his eyes had a far-away look 
in them. 

There was a sharp ring at the bell which startled 
him, and listening he heard the shrill voice of his house¬ 
keeper wrangling below. As the voices seemed to in¬ 
dicate a colloquy of considerable force, he stepped to 
the door of his room and listened. 

He heard his hausekeeper saying: “I tell you Mr. 
Dalton cannot be disturbed, unless you are willing to 
make known your mission.” 

To which the answer came in firm, yet faint tones, 
“I must see Mr. Dalton; my business is important.” 

James Dalton, from above listened more intently. 
There was something strangely familiar in that voice. 
Then stepping to the head of the stairs, he said: “Show 
the lady up, Mrs. Shaw; I will see her.” 

As the caller entered his room, James Dalton eyed 
her closely for a moment; then as their eyes met he 
sunk back into his chair. A violent trembling seized 
him. Between his heavy breathings he cried, “Ann!” 
and covering his eyes with his hands he was silent. 

Mrs. Dalton gazed upon him for a few moments, a 
sneer playing about her mouth as she said: “Yes, 
James Dalton, after fourteen years I am here to de¬ 
mand justice. For Jamie’s sake I will not seek re¬ 
venge. Is she with you still?” 

James Dalton lifted his hands from before his eyes; 
his face was pallid with pain and there was a weary, 
sad expression about his features as he said: “No! She 
has not been with me for over thirteen years. Ann, 
you have suffered; I need not ask, I see. God help me, 
I too, have suffered. You say you come for justice. 
What do you want, Ann? Speak! I am willing to do 
anything to atone for the past. I have long sought for 
that purpose, but Vermont knew nothing of your where- 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


241 


abouts. I did not dream of your being here in this 
great city. And Jamie, is he still alive?” 

There was great interest manifested by Mr. Dalton 
in voice and 1 action as he asked the last question. 

Mrs. Dalton gazed at him steadily for a short time. 
She almost felt a pity for him, he looked so sad and 
dejected. Then, thinking of her crippled darling, her 
eyes blazed with hatred and* anger as she exclaimed: 
“You ask of Jamie, James Dalton. Go down to the 

dingy slums, the damp, rickety tenement house on-- 

street, and I will show you the shriveled limbs of the 
helpless cripple, your flesh and blood. James Dalton, 
before God, -his ruined life is upon your head. Though 
I have slaved and drudged, I could not give him proper 
clothing and nourishment. Privation and exposure, 
walking on damp pavements in worn-out shoes, these 
sufferings have done their work. He was not strong 
and contracted rheumatism in the foul tenements in 
which necessity compelled us to exist, and to-day he is 
a hopeless cripple. Oh, your crime has found you out, 
James Dalton. Thank God I see you have a con¬ 
science still, to prod you for the miserable deed you 
have done.” 

Mr. Dalton had buried his face in his hands, his 
whole person trembling with emotion, as he groaned: 
“Spare me, Ann! for God’s sake cease; you will drive 
me mad.” 

Then raising his head, a far-away look in his dark 
eyes, he said: “May I see him, Ann? May I see 
Jamie?” 

“No!” came the quick, harsh rejoinder. “To Jamie 
you are dead; to Jamie you died fourteen years ago. 
I came not for that, I came for bread, for the very ne¬ 
cessities of life, and I must have them.” 

“My God! Has it come to that?” James Dalton 


242 


SILVER RIFTS. 


passed his hands over his eyes as if to brush away some 
tormenting memory and continued: “You will never 
need look for bread again, Aim; nor Jamie, either.” 

He stepped to an iron safe and opening it took 
therefrom a tin box of bright gold pieces, each of a 
$20 denomination, and emptied them into the lap of 
Mrs. Dalton. She gazed upon the hoard of gold in her 
lap in amazement. There was $500 in gold glittering 
before her eyes. 

As she thus sat, he continued: “That for the pres¬ 
ent, Ann; to-morrow I will settle upon you both prop¬ 
erty that will make you independent for life. Every 
dollar I possess shall be yours, Ann; this house in* 
eluded. The world has smiled upon me and fortune 
has given to me her favor. From my workshop in 
yonder room has come many a design that the world 
has applauded for the labor it has saved. These pat- 
tents have brought me wealth, nay fame. The world 
calls me great, but eccentric.” He laughed a low, 
fierce laugh. “Eccentric, a pretty word to cover the 
remorse, the merciless pain that has haunted me, wak¬ 
ing or sleeping, for fourteen years. The remorse, the 
shame, the despair of my act has crushed its weight 
against my heart until James Dalton, the inventor, is 
the most miserable man on earth.” He paused a mo¬ 
ment from the very force of his emotions and continued: 
“The very force of my misery made me work the harder 
that my mind might not have time to torment me. 
Work, yes, I worked night and day. I worked and my 
work has brought me wealth. The wealth is yours, 
Ann; all yours. It can bring you ease and comfort, but 

it cannot give back my child his -, I cannot speak 

the word, Ann, it burns its way into my brain.” 

Ann gazed at him earnestly as he paused in his 
talk. Her heart was violently moved at the anguish 


MISCELLANEOUS. 


243 


of this man whom she once loved so ardently. But 
her lips were drawn with the resolution to remain firm. 

“I thought I loved her,” he continued, ‘‘this tempt¬ 
er that came between us. She turned my mind and 
blinded me with her winsome grace, but I soon dis¬ 
covered my delusion and then I hated her. When 3he 
discovered I no longer loved her, she as easily aban¬ 
doned me for another. You have been avenged, Ann; 
for through all these years your face has haunted me. 
Too late I knew I loved but you. I ask for no favors, 
Ann, none—but one. I know you hate me now, justly 
so. Ann, this one prayer I make, say that you forgive 
me. Just to hear you say the words that I would give 
my life to hear and could die content.” 

Ann Dalton bad been watching him closely. How 
he had changed; suffering and mental labor had drawn 
their lines upon his face like the waste that follows in 
the wake of a vanquishing army. Yet he was beautiful 
still. The lines had but increased the intellectuality of 
his features. Despite herself she felt the old love throb¬ 
bing in her breast. The tears rushed to her eyes and 
sinking into a chair she wept. 

James Dalton came to her and knelt at her feet, and 
taking her hand in his he said: “Say you forgive me, 
Ann. God has punished me for my sin.” 

Ann Dalton wiped the tears away and said, “I do 
forgive you James. . I thought I should always hate 
you. But—but—you are Jamie’s father and— and— 
you had better come with me and see him now. But 
how shall I tell him? He believes you dead.” 

James Dalton pressed her hand to his lips crying 
ardently: “Oh, Ann! sa ry you will forgive all. Say you 
will bring Jamie back with you, that I may live to atone 
for the past.” She was still weeping. He drew her to 
him, and while the tears were falling down his cheeks 


244 


SILVFR RIFTS. 


she held his hand, and told him of the book she had 
bought for Jamie at the old second-hand bookstore and 
the fateful missive that lay between its sealed leaves. 

He kissed the tears away from the face that was 
wrinkled like his own from suffering and labor, and 
told her of how he had given all the old books of fic¬ 
tion and many other volumes that did not bear im¬ 
mediately upon science or research to a needy woman 
who for years had done his washing. 

“And this book, ‘Thaddeus of Warsaw,’ wthy ’tis 
years since I read it,” he said. “It all comes back to 
me now. I wept as I read of the noble, pure character 
that stood so beautifully firm against the assaults of 
vice. How it condemned me for my sin. This picture 
had lain in the bottom of my trunk and I had found it 
there after the temptress had left me. It was my great¬ 
est treasure for years. As I read the book I took from 
the desk the picture and lock of hair, and gazing upon 
the faithful tokens of love my tears wet the pages of the 
book. I then placed them in an envelope and closed 
the book and laid it aside. The hot tears must have 
cemented, the pages together. For years I have looked 
in vain for the treasures I prized so highly, for I had 
forgotten what I had done with them. Thank God I 
did not find them, for they were the silent messengers 
that brought you to me. God must have pitied me that 
night and in His own time He answered my prayer.” 

He kissed her again as she whispered, “We will 
leave this city of our suffering, James, and go back to 
our New England hills. Somewhere ’mid their cheer¬ 
ing verdure we will build another home, where the 
bracing mountain air may give health to our Jamie.” 

He pressed her to his heart and said: “And Jamie, 
our Jamie; we will go to him now.” 










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